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I was leaving the Cabot store on a Friday morning in May when a sign caught my eye: A photo of an alpaca — one of my favorite animals — surrounded by stars with an arrow pointing toward the end of the plaza at the newly opened Vermont Alpaca Store. A sign outside the alpaca store read: “Warning!! Alpacas can cause an overwhelming loving sensation to your soul. Anyone with a weak heart, enter at your own risk.”
When it comes to animals, I fit that description. I greet dogs on hiking trails before I make eye contact with their owners. At the Tunbridge Fair, one of my first stops is the petting zoo. I beg my best friend for photographs and videos of her two cats, and often ask how they are doing before asking after her husband.
So my heart was weak before I neared the pen of alpacas; when I got there it just about exploded. I have a new place for a pick-me-up.
My alpaca obsession began in my junior year of college when it began to sink in just how much debt I was taking on for a career in a field not known for large paychecks.
I did a couple of Google searches and figured out that purchasing a pair of alpacas would cost about the same as a year’s tuition at SUNY Oswego.
“New life plan,” I announced to my fellow staffers at our weekly student newspaper, The Oswegonian. “I’m quitting school to become an alpaca farmer.”
And that’s when alpacas became, for lack of a better term, my “spirit animal.” Their goofy grins soon filled the desktop of my college computer (and now do the same at my work computer). When I was particularly stressed at school, searches for alpaca farms became my primary distraction.
For me, the appeal of alpacas is their faces: The big eyes, long eyelashes, pert noses, the fluff coming down their foreheads and their constantly moving lower jaws. With alpacas, you always know where you stand. If they like you, they’ll let you pat them, if they ignore you, they don’t mind your presence and if they spit … well, they definitely don’t like you.
After 15 minutes of gazing (and, admittedly, cooing) at the alpacas, I went inside the store where I found out from owners Brian Mattei and Lisa Briggs that, in addition to selling alpaca products, they offer alpaca walks and pen visits: A chance to interact with God’s most perfect creation.
At a return visit a couple of months later, I talked to Brian and Lisa about how the Vermont Alpaca Store, and their related alpaca farm came to be. The couple met and dated in high school in Massachusetts before going their separate ways. They reconnected five years ago through Facebook, and although 34 years had gone by, both their relationship and a dream of their teen years — of starting a farm together — picked up where they had left off.
“Without any hesitation, we just packed up, moved up here and bought a farm,” Briggs said.
The couple purchased 52 acres in Brownington, Vt., and were trying to figure out what they wanted to grow when they went to visit a friend’s alpaca farm.
“We fell in love with the animals,” Lisa said. “As soon as we walked into our friend’s barn in Maine, we looked at each other and said ‘yup, this is what we’re going to farm.’ ”
They began making plans to acquire and start breeding alpacas for a herd they hoped would number 100-200. But as they began to inquire about animals, they found some that were in dire circumstances and they decided to turn their farm into a rescue organization.
While they will still shear the rescued alpacas for fiber to use in products in their store, the couple’s goal is to get alpacas out of bad situations and give them a better life. They opened the Vermont Alpaca Store in May and hope to have the rescue up and running in full by next summer.
Nearly 20 alpacas have already benefited from the couple’s efforts; seven of them stay in the paddock outside the store while the others stay at other farms.
Visitors to the store can pay $10 to walk an alpaca (which are all harness trained) or to interact with them in the pen. The hot weather has ended the walks until fall, with corral visits ($10 for two people) taking their place. Some of the proceeds benefit Make-A-Wish Vermont and Boston Children’s Hospital.
Among the rescued alpacas in the pen — all of them female — is Musette, who is brown and four years old. She was discarded by a major breeder after she could no longer be bred and would have been at risk of being turned into meat. Entering the pen outside the store, she is one of the first to approach.
“She’s perfect for here because she’s so friendly and so sweet,” said Lisa as Musette pushed against her.
While most alpacas have a calm temperament, the circumstances they were raised in have an influence. Gigi, one of two alpacas rescued from a petting zoo, was found with teeth so long they were growing over her nose. She is still a little wary of people.
When Valley News photographer Sarah Priestap first entered the pen, Gigi spat on her. She stepped out and we entered the corral together 10 mintues later, but Gigi was still displeased. When she came close to us, her mouth drawn back and ready to spit, Brian would shoo her away. She would stay away for a spell before edging closer, observing the rest of the herd and the humans who had been admitted into her space.
Throughout our visit the alpacas wandered among us, sometimes looking for a pat, sometimes munching on hay. They competed for attention from Brian and Lisa, often nudging each other out of the way in an attempt to get closer. As Brian and Lisa introduced each one and tell their stories, the girls’ heads perked up at the mention of their names.
“They’re very intelligent animals,” Brian said.
After we left the corral, Brian got out a hose and the herd immediately gathered at the fence. He turned the hose on, giving each of them a miniature bath. Their thick coats make them susceptible to heatstroke.
“They’re all happy and healthy and we’d like to do it for a lot more,” Brian said.
About a month later, I stopped by the store with a friend visiting from New York State. When we entered the pen, Gigi was the first to approach, and I stepped back. Instead of spitting, though, she reached out her neck until we were eye to eye (I am under 5 feet tall and most of the alpacas were around my height) and nuzzled against me. She stood still as I patted her and when I tried to greet other members of the herd, she stayed beside me.
“They bring so much joy to our lives,” Lisa had said during a previous visit and it’s easy to see what caused the couple to fall in love with alpacas.
It’s not just their goofy faces, soft fur or big eyes that first drew me to them in college. After a couple of visits with Brian and Lisa’s herd, I realized the appeal was much stronger than that: It’s the way they interact with each other and those around them. Watching them is calming, the perfect remedy for when the world seems overwhelming.
“It’s been a wonderful ride,” Brian had said during a previous visit. “People just love them.”
The name of Brian and Lisa’s farm and rescue is Living the Dream Alpaca Farm, which they admit might sound a bit like cliche. For them it’s the truth.
It’s a pretty nice dream when you think about it, and for about 10 minutes in an alpaca corral, I was thrilled to be part of it.
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
