There is proof that time continues and new chapters are always around the corner! We are still in our safe, loving mountain space....three years later.
Now! We have created this amazing farm with alpacas, chickens, ducks, geese, yak, and cattle, a garden and greenhouse. Each group of animals, with the exception of the birds, found us!
My daughter had a friend, that knew a neighbor of ours, who needed help. Our neighbor had been raising alpacas for years and ended up with 28 of them! She needed help scooping poop, watering and just helping out.
We had been homeschooling the two youngest boys at the time and decided it would be a great experience for all of us to go help on our neighbors ranch. I had wanted alpacas years ago, but they were going for $20K to $40K each! I gave up on that idea. As we worked our neighbors ranch, the boys and I fell in love.
Our neighbor decided she wanted to downsize, and she asked if we wanted to take some of her alpacas. We did have a barn, but it was being used as storage. Woody and I decided to clean out the barn and bring 7 alpacas home. We had a vision to use their fiber and we also knew these animals were just so therapeutic for anyone who would interact with them. The neighbor ended up giving us fencing, gates and alpacas. We've been loving them for about 2 1/2 years now!
The cows? Well, Woody has been working with an elderly neighbor on the land next to ours helping him raise beef cows for the last 4-5 years now. Last year, Woody took over the majority of the labor on that ranch. We ended up keeping two cows through the winter last year....one was the lead steer (our working cow) and the other cow was kept to be a friend and also needed a bit more nourishment. This winter we have our lead steer and our two mama cows will be coming home soon...hopefully pregnant! One of the mama cows was a run away cow from down the road. She showed up at our meadow, fell in love with our lead steer and decided to stay. Her owner, another elderly neighbor, gifted her to us. The other mama cow was one of our cows that Woody gets "paid" with. For Woody's labor on the ranch next door, he is gifted 5 cows a year.
Yak! Oh, yes, the yak! How I love them all! I had been "yakking" Woody's ears off about yak for about 1 1/2-2 years before the yak showed up! Did you know you can feed three yak the same as one beef cow? You can use the yaks fiber (wool), too! The outside of the fiber is waterproof and the inside is like cashmere. Imaging mixing the alpaca fiber with the yak fiber... You can pack a yak up to 300 lbs., you can ride them, milk them, eat their meat (if you're a meat eater) and their immune system is fabulous! They don't have a tendency to get hoof rot or pink eye like cows do. Yak are lighter on the land, non aggressive by nature and just magestic animals. They can hold their own with predators and don't need much shelter, if any.
Woody was hesitant about trying to get yak. He didn't know much about them, with the exception of what I kept repeating in his ear year after year! We also knew we couldn't afford them.
Some friends of ours knew some locals who were being kicked off their land. These locals had yak on their land and weren't sure what they were going to do. They had about a month or so to move the small herd. They found out from our mutual friends that Jenae loves yak and that we had land.
We all came together and decided that we would take in their yak until further notice.
The very first night the yak were in our meadow, one of them birthed. The owners had said they had no idea if any of the mamas were pregnant.
Woody and I had watched as the bull sniffed the mama from behind (it wasn't mating season) and then the mama walked off on her own into our aspen forest. I thought it was weird the mama would walk off by herself and told Woody that she was looking for a place to birth. We were both so side tracked by it all, we kind of blew it off and walked away.
The next morning, we were standing with a neighbor in our driveway looking at this really strange cloud that was hovering over our meadow. We talked about it for a few moments. Shortly thereafter, the baby yak came out of the meadow!! Yes, his name is Cloud. The owners of the yak gifted us the baby. We have now been hand raising him so we can create a small herd to pack out with, ride, use their fiber, have them work the ranch and possibly milk them in the future. We still house and love the other 6 adult yak. They are all so perfect.
Dreams, manifestation, blessings abound! Life is incredible.
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