School on a Bus (a.k.a. Radical Sabbatical)

Homeschool on the road isn’t just about visiting historical sites. It gives you flexibility to learn about anything that interests you. Kathy and I have been attracted to the idea of owning alpacas for a number of years. While we were in the Lancaster area, we took some time to drop in at an alpaca farm. The farmer spent more than an hour with us explaining what it takes to run a successful alpaca farm. From acquiring, to breeding, shearing, showing, and selling. These are wonderful animals and it was valuable to get some insights into the challenges of running a successful breeding farm.

Kevin: These big furry animals are, shy, soft, and so loveable. When we went today to an Alpaca farm, we would have never have been able to think up these kinds of animals. The farmer showed us around. There was an amazingly interlinking system of gates and doors to keep the females and males from breeding. The first pen had the females and young. There were two younger alpacas, one which was only five or so months old, which was a nice white color. There was another which was born on Christmas day, who was named Leon. Try to guess what it means. He was really nice and soft, probably the best of all the ones we saw. In the next pen the man described how you sold the alpacas by their thickness of hair. I think it was a fun experience, seeing all of these amazing animals. One quick fact is that they are related to the lamas and camels, and do spit.