How We Got Our Start
It still seams hard to imagine, but our Alpaca farm was started over a pair of socks.......
It was the summer of 2005 when Lisa was contemplating her return to work as an elementary school teacher. After taking some time off to be home with our children, she felt it was time to head in a different direction and try her hand at starting a business. She wanted something that didn't take time away from our kids and allowed her to still be a Mom. This meant exploring a home based business. We were living in the village of Penn Yan at the time in a beautiful Victorian home that included a carriage house. Chris operated his financial planning practice from it. We had discussed many times that it would be nice to have some land in the country to escape to on the weekends, but had not actively pursued this in any serious way. The prospect of starting a new business and even relocating to the country rekindled our desire to give this more thought.
We began looking for some land in September of 2005 with the hope of finding something between 10-20 acres. At the same time we focused in on types of businesses that could be run from home and that would allow Lisa to harness some of her creative talents. Lisa is an avid quilter and likes to dabble in other sewing and felting projects. She wanted to pursue something that she was passionate about and it was at this point that God must have been listening to our prayers.
The prior year, Lisa had been diagnosed with Raynaud's Syndrome, which causes the small blood vessels that supply blood to your extremities to become narrow and limit the blood flow to the hands and feet. This often causes her fingers and toes to feel cold and numb and turn white. As blood flow returns when she warms up, they begin to throb and become painful. With colder weather on the way, her sister gave her a pair of socks made from an animal with a funny name called an "Alpaca." They were soft and warm and she ended up wearing them all of the time. Disaster struck one day after she discovered they were accidentally put in the clothes dryer which made them shrink. Actually, she still thinks it was our daughter who did it as she inherited them (see the photo). Normal socks just wouldn't do after having worn, the now famous, "Alpaca socks." So, we decided to invest in a few more pairs.
We went to the internet to search for someplace that sold Alpaca socks and we were amazed at what we found. To our surprise, we discovered that this amazing animal could not only produce this luxurious fiber to make socks and other related products, but potentially be a profitable business venture.
What happened next has been nothing short of amazing! We bought an old farm house in the country with 14 acres and a pole barn. We then spent the next 15 months completely gutting and remodeling the farm house and pole barn, along with purchasing our first four Alpacas (thank you Aussie Hill Alpacas). Chris moved his financial planning practice to a new location and we sold our home in the village. We now have a beautiful farm along with 39 alpacas and an on-line farm store.
Some pair of socks indeed!
It was the summer of 2005 when Lisa was contemplating her return to work as an elementary school teacher. After taking some time off to be home with our children, she felt it was time to head in a different direction and try her hand at starting a business. She wanted something that didn't take time away from our kids and allowed her to still be a Mom. This meant exploring a home based business. We were living in the village of Penn Yan at the time in a beautiful Victorian home that included a carriage house. Chris operated his financial planning practice from it. We had discussed many times that it would be nice to have some land in the country to escape to on the weekends, but had not actively pursued this in any serious way. The prospect of starting a new business and even relocating to the country rekindled our desire to give this more thought.
We began looking for some land in September of 2005 with the hope of finding something between 10-20 acres. At the same time we focused in on types of businesses that could be run from home and that would allow Lisa to harness some of her creative talents. Lisa is an avid quilter and likes to dabble in other sewing and felting projects. She wanted to pursue something that she was passionate about and it was at this point that God must have been listening to our prayers.
The prior year, Lisa had been diagnosed with Raynaud's Syndrome, which causes the small blood vessels that supply blood to your extremities to become narrow and limit the blood flow to the hands and feet. This often causes her fingers and toes to feel cold and numb and turn white. As blood flow returns when she warms up, they begin to throb and become painful. With colder weather on the way, her sister gave her a pair of socks made from an animal with a funny name called an "Alpaca." They were soft and warm and she ended up wearing them all of the time. Disaster struck one day after she discovered they were accidentally put in the clothes dryer which made them shrink. Actually, she still thinks it was our daughter who did it as she inherited them (see the photo). Normal socks just wouldn't do after having worn, the now famous, "Alpaca socks." So, we decided to invest in a few more pairs.
We went to the internet to search for someplace that sold Alpaca socks and we were amazed at what we found. To our surprise, we discovered that this amazing animal could not only produce this luxurious fiber to make socks and other related products, but potentially be a profitable business venture.
What happened next has been nothing short of amazing! We bought an old farm house in the country with 14 acres and a pole barn. We then spent the next 15 months completely gutting and remodeling the farm house and pole barn, along with purchasing our first four Alpacas (thank you Aussie Hill Alpacas). Chris moved his financial planning practice to a new location and we sold our home in the village. We now have a beautiful farm along with 39 alpacas and an on-line farm store.
Some pair of socks indeed!
