it's been over a year - oops

since my last post - ouch!

So much has happened - first, I finally finsihed the salmon pillow.  At least one side anyway.  I had to stop at that point because the price of the pillow was only going up.  Besides, you can only see one side at a time anyway.  I also found an outlet for my failed scarves - using them in the pillows and hats.  I can also use the circles I cut out of the berets for the "head hole" - at least I will eventually.

We also decided to do something about camelid rescue this year - an endeavor we had considered for a while.  This was also a subject I had brought up with the local alpaca association many years ago.  I had thought that if all the member farms put a line item on their yearly budgets to donate $10 to one of the local rescues would show our commitement to the health and welfare of the animals in our industry.  At this point, many years later, there are still no significant efforts from any of the local camelid associations regarding this situation.

Hence us doing what we can do to help.  We're affiliated with Cross Creek Alpaca Rescue and we work with Rebecca of 11th Hour Animal Rescue and Sanctuary.  So far we've placed 29 out of 35 animals.  I wish I could claim some credit, but it's all been Rebecca finding the homes - pretty amazing!

In addition to the alpacas and fiber work, rescue (and the day jobs) we added two goats to the farm.  Chloe is a mini-Oberhasli and her buddy is Gary a mini-Nubian wether.  We get about a quart of milk from Chloe a day and when we come up with a gallon I get to try and make cheese, or put it in the freezer to try later.  So far I've made fromage blanc (literally "white cheese" in french) and chevre (goat in french).  I'm now looking at local cheese making classes because I want to try and make other kinds of cheeses like cheddar, brie and even blue cheese.  But we will have raw goat's milk for visitors to try and cheese whenever it's available.

We've also decided to increase our online presence via this blog, the farm's facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Heart-of-Dreams-Alpacas/67590344191) as well as our website (www.heartofdreamsalpacas.biz).  We're going to set up our store on the website, but we'll only be accepting cash, check and paypal.  Once the payment clears we'll ship the order.  At least that's our thought for now.  We'll also be looking at etsy, openherd and other websites to drive business to our store.  We're hoping that next year we'll be able to stay closer to home, do the higher end shows and festivals with the bulk of our sales coming from online.

So welcome to the Wilmot's new adventure and Happy Holidays!