The results can be seen in the gift shop on the second floor of an old barn, with its displays of alpaca wool, garments and outerwear (as well as a basket of adorable llama greeting cards).
Compared to cashmere socks, those snuggly alpaca socks on the table last years longer and have far greater tensile strength.
For those with sweaty feet, it releases moisture 100% so there is no bacterial growth. It's great for workers who spend a lot of time on their feet.
If she can afford it at all, Amy will give a good discount or a BOGO offer on alpaca socks to members of the military who may have to serve in such desert countries as Afghanistan. It will keep their feet from sweating through scorching days, then keep them warm on chilly nights. You don't even have to wash them that often if you remember to turn them inside out and hang them up to air.
“When it's 100% dry, there's no bacteria or fungal growth,” she pointed out.
Then there are the bags of fleece Amy gives to small-scale chicken farmers. The chicken-poo piles outside the coops freeze over the winter and thaw into a gooey mess in the spring. By scattering fleece on the ground at poo sites, and shavings on top of that, they can rake away the poo and nothing freezes to the ground.
The chickens notice this insulating property and sometimes take some of the fleece inside to line their nests. These are the chickens who seem to lay more eggs in the winter than the others.
Each Old Mill alpaca eats a pound of hay twice a day – not a lot compared to sheep, horses and cows. As ruminants (animals with multiple stomachs), they have very efficient digestive systems.
“Everything is processed through, and everything is extracted,” Amy said.
Alpacas seem to designate a single site for their poo, as pigs do. It makes parasite and bacteria control easy, as they can just sanitize the piles daily – no contamination spread through a field.
Once a year, they remove the pile, clean the site, put down composting and seed the area. The poo is taken away, then turned regularly to make a compost that's very desirable for farmers, as there is no smell and the phosphates are extremely high.
Alpacas don't weigh a lot, so they don't compact the ground. And instead of hooves, they have the kind of toenail-and-pad foot similar to a dog's.
Amy clearly has an educator's soul when it comes to alpacas, and enjoys no audience more than the school groups that used to visit. So many of today's children are so far removed from the farm, they say “Wal-Mart” when she asks where their clothes come from.
The motto of Old Mill is From Field to Fashion and Home, and she likes to give the kids fleece to pull at and feel. Then she instructs them to twist it into something like lengths of yarn and see how strong it becomes.
“I love it, I absolutely love it when the kids come,” she declared.
As a child, she wanted to be a vet. Her father – a doctor – refused to fund university studies that would produce a doctor for animals, as opposed to people, so she went into the arts.
“And guess what? Years later, where am I? With my animals, treating them for abscesses, injecting them for infections, and I absolutely love it. I would die if something happened to the farm and I had to get rid of the animals.”
It's been hard to stave off that heart-rending scenario over the past year of COVID, as they went from welcoming bus tours of 50 to groups of no more than 10 individuals (provided they are all in the same bubble).
“We were booked solid – solid – until August. Then I had to cancel everybody,” Amy said.
Wanting to adhere to both the letter and the spirit of the restrictions, she said, “we did less than we were allowed to.”
They gave up chances for weddings and engagement parties, for example, knowing people would not be staying distanced and masked. They adjusted everything they could.
“We did the right thing. And thank God I had volunteers,” she said.
“I stayed with the guidelines and tried to be a good citizen, to do everything right, while there are other alpaca farmers who stayed open.
“At the same time, I am angry because they are the ones who did stay alive, while the ones who actually worked with the guidelines get screwed.”
Amy was thankful to qualify for CERB. Then her account changed to a CRB claim and, within two payments, it stopped.
What followed thereafter was a vicious cycle. She would enquire, she would be told they needed certain documents, she would hunt up and submit the documents, and then hear nothing – so she would enquire again, be told of other documents they needed, and so on and so on.
Once in a while, just for variety, she would be told she was “in the queue.” She would ask them what they thought she was eating, how they thought she was heating her home, why they thought she was behind on her mortgage.
“Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing from the end of January to April,” she summed up.
And calling to enquire was a big deal, she noted, as it tied her down to staying in her home (where she has her internet connection) for hours on end, waiting to talk to someone on the other end.
