Alpaca farm visit + crafty catch-up

I’ve temporarily changed country since last time I wrote. For the next month, I’ll be visiting my folks in California, helping out a bit around the house (cooking, gardening and such), doing a little prep for my upcoming semester, enjoying some fun local sights, and, of course, crafting.

On Monday, Mom and I visited Barbara Davies at A Simpler Time, her family’s wonderful alpaca ranch and fiber mill in the hills above Harbison Canyon in San Diego. Her homestead was established 23 years ago, but the main house burned down in the devastating Cedar Fire of 2003 (click for map). Long-time locals remember the massive two-month long blaze that was to be one of the worst in California’s history.

When it was over, neighbors rallied to help the Davies family rebuild the home, and what was to become one of the only alpaca fiber mills in the region. (Check out photos of the rebuild here.)

The mill has been in full operation for almost twenty years, and attracts clients from all over the West. The site is also a thriving alpaca farm with nearly two dozen alpacas, as well as a shop with hand-dyed alpaca yarns and related merchandise. Barbara is a skilled needleworker and sells beautiful handmade garments, too.

Our journey to the farm was a fun trip into a secret niche of San Diego’s ever-shrinking backcountry. We arrived at a lovely blue and white home at the crest of a hill, surrounded by jacaranda, fruit trees, and native plants. Although in the valley, the day was a typical July scorcher, at the top, the breeze was pleasantly fragrant and mild, and the atmosphere was peaceful.

After a cool drink, Barbara and Max the sheltie showed us around the property. We started at a pen housing a week-old baby alpaca, his mom, and another pregnant alpaca “due any day now,” Barbara told us. Barbara said alpacas typically give birth in the mornings, and it happens pretty quickly. When a birth is expected, Barbara will visit the pens at daybreak to check for a new arrival.

Alpacas are sheared for their fleece once a year, usually in the spring. I was surprised by how many colors alpacas come in – black, white, shades of brown, mottled hues, as well as gray, which is the rarest color (Barbara has two gray alpacas). The fleece makes such wonderful yarn, since it’s water-repellent, durable, and fire-resistant. It is one of my favorite yarn fibers to work with.

We had fun feeding the alpacas some snacks before heading to the mill for a run-down on how fine alpaca yarn is spun from fleece. The mill is in a 600-square-foot space separate from the main house.

Barbara explained many steps in the process, which involves cleaning and refining stages that use different machines. There are about four major steps before making roving, which is a fiber ready for spinning into yarn, but roving can also be used as-is for specialized kinds of knitting or other textile arts. For example, I’ve used roving in weaving projects to great effect.

Check out a photo above of a fingering-weight yarn I picked up a the shop, dyed a gorgeous sapphire hue. Barbara sells alpaca yarn in natural (undyed) colors, and colors that use Jacquard dyes.

Although I’m a San Diego native, this was my first time visiting the Davies’ ranch, which is only about 20 minutes from my parents’ house. It’s an unforgettable little Eden that I hope to visit again one day. If you’d like to read more about the ranch, follow this link.

In other news, I’ve really accelerated my crafting now that the semester is behind me. I’m 80 percent done with two mandalas, and just this morning, I finished a beautiful scarf using Lana Grossa Ecopuno Dégradé yarn in colorway 414, a soft blue-green mix. The fiber content is 72% Cotton/ 17% Merino Wool/ 11% Baby Alpaca, which makes it light-weight but toasty. It’ll be ready for fall when I get back to Korea.

I have a few more crafts planned for my vacation time, including a hat from the sapphire alpaca I picked up at the Davies’ ranch. I’ll be back soon to share; until then, be well!