Celebrate Autumn with a Visit to Windrush Alpacas

October usually makes us think of all things warm, cozy and pumpkin. At Windrush Alpacas we prefer Cinnamon, Espresso, and Biscotti, just three of our friendly herd of alpacas who are waiting for you to visit with them on Open Farm Day!

Spend time with all of our alpacas at Open Farm Day, Saturday, October 8, 2016. The alpacas love your attention! We’ll give you a tour of the farm, answer your questions about raising alpacas, and let you get close and personal with some of the herd.

A visit to Windrush Alpaca is not complete without stopping in at our Farm Store. It’s time to start stocking up on super warm alpaca socks and slippers, hats and gloves, scarves and shawls. We even have cozy pet beds for your dogs and toys for your cats! Make sure you stop by for refreshments too!

Do you wish you had an alpaca of your own? You can have a very special alpaca to visit whenever the farm is open if you become an Adopt-A-Paca© member. You’ll get an official certificate, a picture of your alpaca and occasional letters from them too! Learn more about our Adopt-a-Paca© program when you visit.

Open Farm Day is for all ages! Informative tours and fun activities keep everyone busy on Open Farm Day! There is always something new to learn and see at the farm, so if you’ve been here before, please come again – and bring a friend! Stop by anytime on Saturday, October 8 between 10 am and 3 pm!  Light refreshments will be served!

It’s always free admission and free parking. Windrush Alpacas farm is located just 1-1/4 miles south of Brady on CRM. Watch our Facebook page for updates www.facebook.com/WindrushAlpacas.

For more information, call us at 575-683-5177 or visit our website at www.windrushalpacas.com, shop online at http://www.windrushalpacas.net/store/ , or sign up for our newsletter at http://eepurl.com/xhiwn! Learn more about our Adopt-a-Program here http://www.windrushalpacas.com/pages/2087/adopt-a-paca .

Open Farm Day is Saturday!

March Open Farm Day…coming soon!

Spring is such a beautiful time of year as new grass and buds begin popping. To celebrate the season, Windrush Alpacas is offering a Breath of Spring yarn with soft green tones for sale and invites you and your family to come out to our farm to meet the alpacas who made it.

Visit Windrush Alpacas on Saturday, March 9, 2013 between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. during our monthly Open Farm Day Event and Farm Store Shopping Experience.  Glance through our inventory of other alpaca fiber yarn items such as the most comfortable socks and slippers you could ever put on your feet as well as soft scarves and wraps, mittens, and hats.  Alpaca fiber is warmer than wool yet lighter in weight and has a softness that’s comparable to cashmere. It’s naturally lanolin free and does not feel prickly against your skin so that people who are sensitive to wool can usually wear alpaca. That’s wonderful!

If you want to take home more than a piece of fashionable clothing, sign up for our Adopt-a-Paca Program and sponsor an alpaca for a year! Receive a glossy photo, pen pal letters, and other goodies all year long!

 

Then take a tour of our Alpaca Farm and learn about alpacas and what they’re really like. This is an event that can be enjoyed by your whole family… from toddlers to teens to great-grandparents!

We always offer free admission, free parking and free refreshments. Come join us! We look forward to meeting you.

For more information, call us at 575-683-5177 or visit our website at http://www.windrushalpacas.com. Also, you can Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/WindrushAlpacas and shop online at http://www.windrushalpacas.com/store/ and sign up for our newsletter!

Open Farm Day this Saturday–Plus a 30% off sale!

Our biggest sale of the year!

Windrush Alpacas is ringing in the new year with a “30% off for 2013” sale during our Open Farm Day Event on Saturday, January 12^th!

 

Winter is here and it’s cold! Bundle up with something warmer than wool and softer than cashmere… alpaca! We have a plethora of alpaca fiber products—some made from our very own pacas—from luxuriously soft scarves, gloves, mittens, and hats to everyone’s favorite socks and slippers.  Stock up during our 30% sale and you’ll be covered for many winters to come.

Come prepared to shop on Saturday, January 12^th, 2013 during our Open Farm Day Event and Farm Store Shopping Experience between 10:00 and 3:00.  In addition to clothing and accessories, we also have rugs, toys, household items and pet products—everything is on sale! Then take a guided tour of our working alpaca farm and learn how we harvest the fleece that is called “The fiber of the Gods”.

Your whole family will enjoy this unique and fun day on the farm.

We always offer free admission, free parking and free refreshments. Come join us! We look forward to meeting you.

For more information, call us at 575-683-5177 or visit our website at http://www.windrushalpacas.com. Also, you can Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/WindrushAlpacas and shop online at http://www.windrushalpacas.net/store/ and sign up for our newsletter!

Of fiber and friends

 

 

Jessie Dodington and Ruth Randolph spinning at Windrush Alpacas while our commercial is being shot

One of the pleasures of having an alpaca business is that it opens you up to meeting all sorts of fiber addicts – knitters, crocheters, spinners, weavers, felters, we all share a love of fiber and enjoy getting together and enjoying fiber arts.  Alpacas are a fiber animal so let’s face it we alpaca breeders need fiber fanatics!

Two of the  fiber fanatics I have met along the way are Liby Ball and Jessie Dodington,

Liby, Jessie and I met through a local knitting group.  Liby was living in nearby Portales with her husband Jared who was working in Portales at that time, Jessie came to Portales with her husband to be (now her husband) Elliott who had accepted a job at Eastern New Mexico University.   Knitting groups are a wonderful way to integrate yourself into the local community.  As Jessie puts it

“I’ve moved around a lot and the one trick that never fails me when I arrive in a new town is to go to the local yarn store or library and ask about the existence of any knitting groups. There is nothing nicer than being welcomed into a knitting group. You already have something in common with everyone – you’re a crafter! – the atmosphere is casual and conversation comes easy while you sit and work on your projects.”

Jessie and Liby hit it off immediately and a firm friendship formed over time.  Liby now lives in Indiana but distance cannot keep Liby and Jessie apart and so putting their creative heads together they decided to go on a mission to entertain crafters of all types by starting a pod cast called Multicraftual 

Multicraftual is a fun and addictive pod cast.  Jessie and Liby discuss their current and finished projects interjected with much zany humor and the occasional glass of wine.

Jessie knits, Liby crochets, but both do so much more.  Liby is a very talented seamstress (you can check out her creations on her Facebook page ) and is also a belly dancer extraordinaire   Jessie is a very talented fine artist (you can check out Jessie’s creations on her blog ), knitting pattern designer, spinner and also sings in local choirs. (I guess that makes them an all singing, all dancing duo!)

When talking of Liby, Jessie and Multicraftual I cannot omit Liby and Jessie’s cats who also make brief appearances during the pod casts.  “Pancake”  (Liby’s cat) is a star in his own right and has his own Facebook Page  while “Dragon”  (Jessie’s young kitten) is becoming famous for performing “the kitty plank” during the pod cast.  Watch the pod cast to see what “the kitty plank” is.

So apart from my friendship with Liby and Jessie, how does Multicraftual relate to Windrush Alpacas you might ask?  Well first off Jessie and Liby are yarn customers of ours.  Jessie also knit a beautiful sample shawlette of her own design using our Windrush Alpacas Blue Swirl yarn so that I could display the shawlette in our farm store to show people how our yarn knits up.

Windrush Alpacas Blue Swirl Yarn. A sumptuous alpaca/bamboo blend yarn

 

 

Recently Jessie also helped out with our TV commercial.  Those are Jessie’s hands you see spinning away in the foreground during the shot of the spinners.  (The other spinner being our friend and fellow knit group member Ruth Randolph).  Plus in the recent Episode 13 of the Multicraftual pod cast our commercial and our yarn are both mentioned, and there is some bonus footage of Jessie’s time at the farm while we were filming, including a brief guest appearance by Daisy the dog!

So get comfortable, drift on over to Multicraftual and enjoy some light hearted crafting chat with two special ladies.  Be warned though it’s addictive!

Note:  For those of you who use Ravelry you can also find Multicraftual in the groups there

Rosemary

We have great gift ideas for you!

Adopt-A-Paca – the motivation behind the program

I’m Aimee – Adopt Me!

We recently decided to launch a new “product” at the farm, although perhaps ‘product’ is really not a good word for it.  “Opportunity” may be a word more fitting, as we feel our Adopt-a-Paca program allows people a chance to get a closer glimpse of life with alpacas without having to go to the expense of buying and keeping them.

The Adopt-A-Paca program was Ric’s idea.  Anyone who has been to our Open Farm Days knows that Ric is the main man when it comes to doing the tours of the farm.  Ric is definitely much more of a people person than I am (nothing personal folks, but I just am more comfortable with four leggeds than two leggeds!)  and really enjoys interacting with visitors young and old.  Ric’s 30 years in the Air Force has provided him with confidence in public speaking and his degree in Elementary Education enables him to relate to the many young visitors we get to Open Farm Day.  People love Ric’s farm tours and Ric loves to give them.

So having shown many visitors around the farm, Ric realized that many people would dearly love to own alpacas but are not in a position to do so.  Not everyone lives on acreage suitable for alpacas, and our military visitors know that they are usually stationed here for a few short years and could deploy overseas or get a permanent move in the near future.  Some people know that they don’t have the time to care for alpacas along with their already busy schedules.  There are a variety of reasons why people may not be able to own alpacas, but that doesn’t mean that they may not hope to in future years and it doesn’t stop them longing to own alpacas or wanting to connect with alpacas.  Ric wanted a way to get those people a little closer to living the alpaca dream.

Being “animal mad” at a young age I can relate to those who long to own animals but who don’t get the opportunity to do so.  As a child I loved animals of all shapes and sizes and longed to have a pony or horse of my own.  The only dolls I played with were those that could sit on toy horses.

My parents did their best to cater to my desire to be around animals.  They arranged for riding lessons, drove me to stables to help friends who owned horses and drove me to kennels to volunteer.  They knew that any family vacation would involve either finding a riding stable nearby or organizing trips to visit local horses, cows or any other creature that I decided to bond with on vacation.  My brothers and I grew up with family dogs, cats, goldfish, gerbils and guinea pigs, but my parents did not feel that we could have a horse in our family.

So when Ric suggested the Adopt-a-Paca program it struck a chord with me.  Here was a way we could allow people who fall in love with our alpacas and to get a little bit closer to alpaca life.

To start with we have kept the program very basic.  For $25 people can select one of the alpacas in the Adopt-a-Paca program for a year and in exchange they receive:

• An Adoption Certificate
• An 8×10 picture of the selected alpaca
• A copy of the Alpaca Registry, Inc. (ARI) registration certificate showing the alpaca’s date of birth an lineage
• Periodic pen pal letters from the alpaca
• Monthly e-mail newsletters from the farm
• Maybe even get some neat bonuses during the year… you’ll just have to wait and see!

The sponsorship will last for 12 months at which time you can renew for another year or pick a new alpaca

As the program grows we may make some changes and expand it further, for now we are just “dipping our toes in the water” to gauge the amount of interest.

Of course you don’t get to take the alpaca home and ownership of the alpaca is still ours, but for the year you are in the program you will get a closer look at life with the alpacas and hopefully get to know “your” alpaca better.

What’s in it for us you might ask?  Well your $25 contribution will go toward covering the costs of daily care for your alpaca – it costs more than $25 a year to raise an alpaca, but your contribution will help offset the costs a little.  We also feel we will get to know our farm visitors and fans a bit better.  Perhaps too in these trying economic times your “adopted” alpaca will bring you something to look forward to and put a little joy in your heart as alpacas often do.

We hope you will join in with our “Adopt-A-Paca” program and that together we will have a lot of fun with it – and of course if you would prefer to actually own alpacas we also sell them too!

Rosemary

Cold Weather And Pumpkins Arrive At The Farm

Brrr!  In typical New Mexico style we have been treated to a sudden change in weather.  From days last week with temperatures in the high eighties and early nineties, today we have dropped to a day time high of around 45 F.  Fall has finally arrived on the high plains!

The cold weather gives the alpacas (and their owners) a hearty appetite.  It also makes for frisky alpacas – young Tiki was doing vertical take off displays this evening, Snow and Betty were running full gallop with the occasional kick of their legs in the air.  With the alpacas now having at least a couple of inches of fleece growth the cool temperatures feel good to them.

Our next Open Farm Day is rapidly approaching.  Fall is a great time to stock up on alpaca products and I have been busy creating things for the store.  Some wearable and others just fun.

Fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving all bring to mind pumpkins and even pumpkins can be made from alpaca!  Easy to care for, no mess involved and they will last you for years.  Needle felted alpaca pumpkins are just the thing for your fall decorations.

Hand made and cute as can be these mini needle felted pumpkins could be yours!

Using dyed alpaca roving (roving is fleece that has been processed to align all of the fibers in the same direction) and a needle felting technique.  I have made a selection of pumpkins to be available in the store.  From plain pumpkins to Jack-O-Lanterns, mini pumpkins to larger versions – you can choose the ones that appeal to you the most.

So come on out and join us next Saturday, October 13 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. pick the pumpkin that appeals to you the most and meet our wonderful alpacas at the same time.

Rosemary

Dress warmly! Wear alpaca!

 

Now that winter is officially here, are you looking for ways to stay warm? Alpaca fiber is warmer than wool yet lighter in weight.  It’s naturally lanolin free and does not feel prickly against your skin with a softness that’s comparable to cashmere.  Plus, people who are sensitive to wool can usually wear alpaca!

Alpaca fiber is used for many cold-weather products like luxuriously soft scarves, gloves, mittens, hats and the most comfortable socks and slippers you could ever put on your feet!

 

So come on out to Windrush Alpacas on Saturday, January 14, 2012 between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. for our monthly Open Farm Day Event and Farm Store Shopping Experience. Learn first-hand about alpacas, how they live, and how we harvest their lovely fleece to use in products to keep people warm. Of course we welcome you to browse our Farm Store and the multitude of other merchandize we offer — rugs, toys, household items, and accessories — and sip on some special Alpaca Themed coffee.

This is an experience that can be enjoyed by your entire family… from toddlers to great-grandparents!

 

We always offer free admission, free parking and free refreshments.

Call us at 575-683-5177 or visit our website at http://www.windrushalpacas.com for more information. Also, you can Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/WindrushAlpacas and shop online at http://www.windrushalpacas.net/store/.