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Clear Sky Alpacas
the farm from the beginning to now...
Beginning of The Farm
Our dream of living on a farm came to fruition in 2010. We wanted to leave the hustle bustle of the big city (Grand Rapids, Michigan) and find a peaceful country farm where we could raise fiber animals.
Alpacas became our choice because: first, we love their fiber, second, we love their individual personalities, and third, we love the alpaca people community.
Our farm is 34 acres goes back to the woods
you can see in the distance.
The Farm grows...
We began with 4 pregnant females. Our herd doubled in size when Macy, Bindi, Queenie, and Carly each delivered their cria (baby alpacas).
As we grew the herd, we decided to keep white alpacas as an important part. I love dyeing the fiber into a wide range of colors. Our white alpacas provide the majority of the fiber used in our dyeing process.
My personal favorite alpaca color is black or patterned. Many of the breeding decisions made over the years have been based on the hope of having our favorite colors.
More alpacas have been purchased, more have been bred, and more cria have arrived, and many have been sold to other farms over the years. Our herd number is currently 34 alpacas.
Find out more about the alpacas on our Alpaca page.
We add Chickens!
A couple years after moving to our farm, we decided to add chickens! Our own free range chickens lay farm fresh eggs. Yum!
What breeds should we start with? Rick and I decided to purchase a variety of heritage breeds: Silver Laced Wyndotte, Light Brahma, Buff Orbington, Araucana,
More egg laying heritage breed chickens were added over the next couple of years. Most recently we added 8 chickens, the results of an oops hatching.
Read more about our chickens here: The Chickens
One of our roosters
Meet our Barn Cats!
What’s a farm without Barn Cats? Our resident barn cats, Blackie and Tiger, moved to the farm with us. They are very spoiled! The office in the barn is their main living quarters with a small door just for them to go in and out as they please. A couple of cat beds, a people sleeping bag for them to share in the winter, and a litter box help to make them cozy.
In a corner of the barn itself there is a cat tree which they share with the chickens.
Several times a day Tiger and Blackie come to the house and are rewarded for their great jobs with canned cat food. No mice get into our barn with them on duty.
And The FIBER!!!!
Alpaca fiber is one of the softest fibers on Earth. The Incas reserved this fiber for the upper class.
Each year at shearing we carefully bag each alpaca’s “blanket” (their prime fiber). But we don’t want to throw any fiber away! We’ve found uses for all of it. Neck fiber is bagged separately. The legs and belly fiber is also bagged and labeled as “thirds”.
Learn more about the fiber and how we use it all on our “The Studio“ page.
This is S2’s blanket (prime) fiber. A beautiful blanket that can be used as spinning fiber for yarn.