Alpaca Farm

Melch and her co-workers had somehow gotten it into their heads that it would be a good idea to visit an Alpaca farm.  It turns out that there's a pretty sizable one adjacent to the Firestone winery in Los Olivos, just a quick jaunt over the pass from Santa Barbara.

Up until our trip, all that I knew of llamas was what I'd learned from the film "The Emperor's New Groove."  All that I knew of alpacas was that they were kind of like llamas.

Kind of like a llama

 Apparently alpacas and llamas are closely related to camels, though camels have been bred to carry things, whereas alpacas were bred for their fiber.

Newly-born Alpaca

Alpacas are friendly herd animals and are actually quite curious.  Whenever we'd walk through one of the many enclosures on the farm, the residents would hurry up to us.

Since alpacas are raised for their wool and my wife and her co-workers are knitters, we talked a lot about the fiber and the yarn/knitted goods that the farm had produced from it.  Melch decided that she wanted to knit herself an alpaca-wool sweater and purchased a bunch of gray yarn for the purpose after the tour was over.

Once the transaction was complete, we had to go back out into the fields so that we could meet Thesius, the alpaca from whence Melch's wool had come.  Melch promised to come back later and show him "his" sweater once it was completed.

After saying our goodbyes to alpaca, farm-worker and co-worker alike, we went for some wine tasting and a picnic dinner before hopping into the convertible for the sunset drive over the pass.  Not a bad Saturday!