What's New in our Zoo?

It has been an eventful spring and summer on SOULfox Farm! We survived the winter and all the cleanup that came from being a newbie alpaca farmer...mainly beans, beans and more beans! I am still talking poop, which just never seems to end around here. Also had to do some massive cleanup of all the hay and straw that my girls loved to eat and bed down in, it was all over the front of the main paddock. It provided me the opportunity to get my steps in and of course the never ending shoveling and wheelbarrowing was a real treat. My intentions with all this material was to start a garden this year but with all the events that were to come, I'm glad I didn't pursue a garden on top of everything else. So for now we will refer to this simply as a soil building exercise and keep at it until I get a handle on everything which, let's be honest, could be years in the making. It's all good, I am learning that with farming there will always be something to do and the work I put in now will yield results when I'm ready.

After our cleaning and with the nice weather we had in the early spring we got down to the business of shearing everyone. Finally the mobile panels I thought were a somewhat silly purchase came in handy as we were able to set up a nice pen for the girls right beside the driveway where our whole operation was situated. My mentor came all the way from Saskatchewan for our first shearing experience and it truly made the event run smoothly. Her husband was on hand to help as well, providing a lot of little fixes to things like my always broken wheelbarrow! Of course his handling of the alpacas on and off the table was amazing and my son soon picked up his alpaca whispering directly from him. I'm sure if Don was reading this he would point the finger at Lynn as the true alpaca whisperer, and he is right, but his ability to calm and woo the alpacas in the pen meant we had a constant stream at the table and no issues. My daughter was on hand and learning about sorting and classing fibre with Lynn. I was doing injections and generally running around wherever I was needed at the time. The alpacas were naked and happy after shearing and we bagged some lovely fibre.

After shearing comes birthing season and we were anxiously awaiting our first cria (baby alpaca for the uninitiated) of four that we expected this season. Our Gemma, who had given us Newton the season before, was the first to deliver...and did she deliver! She gave birth to a healthy big strapping boy we affectionately named Henry but should have called Rocket as this boy took about 15 minutes after being born to stand up and start running. He hasn't stopped running or growing since and he is a beautiful rose grey color, the product of his mom Gemma being a rose grey and his dad Prophet an almost black alpaca. Second to be born on the farm to mama Magdalena was little Lola. Little Lola is a sweet almost red girl with a quiet and somewhat standoffish disposition. At least she didn't appreciate being poked around by Henry for the first few weeks of her life. She is a little beauty with a curious disposition and the sweetest eyes. We then welcomed Honey to the farm from mama Nila. Honey's birth was nothing like Henry's (I was at work during Lola's birth) as she took her sweet time coming out and was far slower to get up and move and nurse than he was. She is a white with a very light overcoat of light fawn on her head and back. She was our smallest cria and will be one of the ones that has a lot of potential with her fibre. Although she took some time to start her life and figure out nursing she is now the little spitfire of the farm. There are times when we are in the house and we glance out to see Honey leading the cria pack at a solid run from the back of the pasture to the front. We stop what we are doing and head out to watch the fun. They are only young once and there is nothing like seeing the open joy and abandon on their little faces as they pronk and race each other while their mamas look on. We will be welcoming our last cria of the season in the next week when mama Gecina decides to let that little one out to join the fun. So far I receive nothing more from her than her haughty stares and turned up lip every morning when I ask if today is the day. Part of cria season is learning to be patient and let the girls do their thing in their own time rather than on my schedule.

We have now moved into breeding season which is probably, for me at least, the most demanding work. Handling a fully intact and horny stud takes some serious knowledge and smarts lol or at the very least, a sense of knowing and being able to get the hell out of the way. Having said that I learned the hard way what every livestock manager probably knows intuitively and that is never turn your back on a male during breeding season. Lesson learned the hard way, or the normal way for me, I did and in turn was charged. I had a mild concussion and a very nasty kidney infection to show for my slip but I'm now recovered and Kung Fu and I remain on very good terms with each other. I won't say much about breeding here as I have learned that some people, mostly not farmers, get a bit uncomfortable when I describe the process and show them detailed pictures. Kung Fu has made the rounds to all our females, with the exception of Gecina, and we will be turning our attention now to checking that the girls are indeed pregnant and re-breeding those that didn't take the first time.

In closing reflection of all that has gone down on the farm this far I am still in awe of these lovely animals. There is so much that I have learned from them and so much yet to learn. I love sitting out and watching the little communities we have here. Feeling their energy and seeing them interact with each other gives me a great sense of peace and happiness and that all is right with my little world. In the words of the herd....huuuummmm.

Our sweet mama Gemma

Bean Stories

Wow, I'm about six months in to having my alpaca farm so with your permission, I'm going to refer to myself as a farmer now. Of course I realize that having 6.5 acres and 7 alpacas likely means I'm nothing more than a hobby farmer so yeah, still a farmer! One of the topics that I feel is near and dear to my heart is poop because I am essentially a 12 year old boy and nothing is more fascinating than poo. I believe it also tells you a lot about diet, overall health and stress levels. Please know that I'm not an expert and most of this comes directly out of what I have learned as a parent to 3 kids, scores of cats and a few dogs and now, alpacas. I have observed a lot of poo over the course of 48 years. My focus today is on alpaca poo, or beans as it's usually referred to. I will consider your feelings and not post bean pictures as I've found that most people are not as interested in it as I am. Although the gross out factor is far less than having your son call you from the loo to come and see the big monster he left behind...trust me on this one.

Alpacas are very considerate animals as they tend to build communal bean piles, probably being prey animals they don't want to carry individual scent and to control the spread of parasites. Whatever their reason, alpaca farmers are happy knowing they can walk out in a field and not constantly be sidestepping mud pies. It also makes pasture cleaning a lot easier for us. Beans are a great fertilizer for gardens, planting beds, etc., whether on a large or small scale, you can apparently just mix the beans in and plant away. I have yet to experiment with using the beans as I've just spent the winter collecting them.

It's been a very cold winter here in Alberta, unusually cold, the coldest winter on record for the past 40 years I've heard. And all I can say is, of course it is, I just started a farm and that means that every challenge known to woman should be thrown at me right out of the gates right? I mean nature doesn't take kindly to some random start-up farmer who thinks because she can fix a sink and passably drive a tractor that she should be allowed to ease into farming. Hell no, let's throw everything we can at her so she'll tuck tail and run back to the city life where she belongs. So what started out as a very organized bean pile outside of the fenced pastures where it made sense in the fall, turned out to be an inconvenient location at best and a total pain to actually walk to with waist deep snow. I resorted to collecting beans in a massive pile out behind my barn and even with the new location I managed to snap the wheel off my wheelbarrow early enough in the season. So now I walk with my full grain shovel from the inside pile to the outside pile. Back and forth and back and forth...

They poop a lot because they are eating machines! Aside from the insanely warm and heavy coats they have, the calories they take in help to keep them warm. I've been really fortunate with my girls, and Newton, that they have not had any health issues. I know this because most of what I do every day is shovel beans, I get a lot of beans on a shovel on each pass so it gives me the opportunity to really have a look at what's coming out the other end. I'm not sure if the girls, and Newton, think I'm a loon because I tend to get really quiet when shoveling, rather than the running commentary I have with them at all other times. But poop is important!

I was cleaning out the barn yesterday and as I finished picking up most of the beans I had Gemma stand in the middle of the barn with her back to me and her tail lifted....I knew what was on the way and just as the beans began to tumble out onto the fresh straw she turned her long graceful neck to look me right in the eyes and smile. I love Gemma, probably more than any of my girls, including Newton, but that was just not cool. I got the same from Gecina when I cleaned the outside pile and now I just figure they poop to keep me running so they can laugh at me. I could almost hear Nila snorting and laughing at me from the edge of the herd. Those 3 girls!!!! I couldn't love them anymore than I do, they are my quirky jokers and I'm so glad they have so much personality. I can't even fathom what it will be like next winter with 4 more alpacas to clean up after, I mean at some point this has to go from manual work to something mechanized doesn't it? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the work out but this is a 57% herd expansion, that's a lot more to deal with.

Fortunately I have been managing it well enough in the current location and there are other changes to the design of my primary areas that I want to address soon for next season. I think with that I will be able to figure out a more suitable collection area, or, if I keep the same location I will at least have the summer to build pallet collection containers for all this crap. I don't like a messy farm even if there is a certain amount of beauty in the beans. Once I get rolling this spring, if the snow ever does go away, I will post some pictures of what I come up with. I'll also be selling beans by the pail, so if you are in the neighborhood and bring a pail you'll be getting some good fertilizer for a good price! It's all part of my cycle of life sustainability project that I'm working towards.

How SOULfox Farm Products Support Women

I have wanted to write and share this post for some time now but have struggled a little in how to tell you about our biggest news without sounding like a total d-bag all full of herself and her cause. Well those of you that know me well understand that my excitement is genuine and comes strictly from my heart...they also know that I am capable of being a d-bag too, we just call it balance!

It's impossible to both support and not support everything that you are passionate about so to pick just one that I could get behind was a challenge for me. But, like most things in my life it kind of just fell into my lap and once I connected the dots it became pretty clear what I needed to do for the business and for one of my lifelong passions. I have personally been through a hell of a life and I mean that both literally and figuratively, having made it through an abusive marriage and PTSD to becoming a spiritual consultant and healer, artist and now alapca farmer while maintaining a career in Information Management. Yeah, talk about a ball of weird!

So my lifelong passion has been to empower women, all women, no matter who they are or what their age or income is. I feel like I've spent a lifetime crusading against "the man" right from my father whose word was law, to the domestic violence group I spent time with while I was healing. It was obviously no coincidence when I met Ester this year and knew from intuition that her and I would somehow come together to do something great. That's just what happened.

Ester is the lovely woman that cleans our offices daily. She comes by everyday to pick up my garbage and chat a little. Even with a small language barrier she manages to make you feel good about your day, she is sunlight walking! She noticed that I routinely bring my alpaca products into my office for those who are interested in purchasing anything. She very shyly asked me one day if I would display some of the knit and crocheted products she makes on the side. I was thrilled to be able to do that for her and the very next day I had about half a dozen stuffed to the brim bags on my desk. I was a little overwhelmed! We put everything out on the desk to showcase and it was then she told me her story.

She immigrated here from Chile with her husband, a teacher by trade, the only work she could get in Canada was as housekeeping staff with a large company. Her marriage broke down and when her husband left her, he left her with nothing. She has a teenage son that has a moderately severe disability and she is now trying to make ends meet for both of them and to pay for his needs. The proceeds she is making from her products goes to pay the bills for her son. When she told me her story she told it to me with pride and sorrow and that's when I looked at her and told her that I want her to work for SOULfox Farm. She was not expecting that at all, quite frankly, neither was I but there it was, the universe unfolding in the most perfect way that it does.

So Ester now takes the alpaca yarn that I supply to her, she handcrafts these beautiful high quality products and I pay her for each completed product. She names her price and I pay her before the product even hits the shelf as I don't believe she should have to wait to see a profit. It means double the work for me but I'm just grateful that I can help someone who needs a hand up, especially someone as wonderful as Ester!

It's my goal with SOULfox Farm to earn a living in a fair and responsible way to the people that provide our products and to being environmentally proactive on our farm. I can't wait to share more news about the farm, our products, our alpacas and of course me! Thanks for reading friends, I'm happy you stopped by today.