Having decided that upon Bernard’s retirement we wanted to live in the country in 1980 we purchased 20 acres of land in the Shenandoah Valley.

We spent the next 14 years of weekends and vacations when Bernard was at home from his frequent travels, building a log house on the property. When he eventually retired in 1993 after a life in the aircraft industry we moved to the country.

When we had acquired our country property there already existed a large barn which had been extremely useful for storing building materials while our house construction was in progress – but what to do with it now? Also what should we do with the 20acres of land which over the years before we took up residence had been mown for hay by a neighbouring farmer?

Marion had always wanted to raise animals, but not the kind that end up as food! We looked at various possibilities – horses, sheep, goats etc.- but could not settle on any of these and were still dithering when our eldest daughter suggested alpacas.

She is a spinner, weaver and knitter and when attending the Montpelier Fall Fiber Festival had seen some alpacas and thought they might just be the animals we were looking for – she was right! Within a month we had purchased three geldings. We thought we would see how we liked dealing with alpacas and see if they liked us and our environment – we were in agreement! Shortly after this we purchased two pregnant females and Marion Alpacas became a reality.

We also found that there are considerable tax benefits to be gained from raising alpacas as a business, a bonus on top of the pleasure of caring for these beautiful creatures.

We have since built an additional barn to enable better separation of our males and females. The original barn has been replaced as the result of tornado damage in 2002. Fortunately none of the alpacas suffered any ill effects.