Today I'm talking with Steve and Jennifer at Outlaw Farm Alpacas, LLC. You can also follow on Facebook.

If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment.

Or just buy me a coffee

00:00
listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Steve and Jennifer at Outlaw Farm, Alpacas, LLC in Ohio. Good morning, you guys. How are you? Good morning, everybody. Doing well. I love that. No one has ever said good morning, everybody, on any episode of my podcast so far. Thank you for doing that. I'm glad I'm the first.

00:29
Uh, were you in radio by any chance? I'm a performer and I own a production company, so I'm pretty familiar with this kind of stuff. Yeah. I figured you had to have something in your background because most people would never have thought to have said that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So the first thing I always ask is how is the weather where you are and you're in Ohio. So how's the weather in Ohio this morning? Well, it's a little overcast today. It says it's 60, but it certainly doesn't feel like it.

00:58
It is raining here in Minnesota this morning and it has been overcast for the whole week. I am praying that we get some sunshine tomorrow because I am a, I'm a sunshine girlie. I really do like it when the sunshine is pouring in the windows. And this week I've gotten up every day and watch the sun come up, what little sun there was, and then it's been gray. So I am ready for it not be gray for a little bit. think we have a couple days of rain in store for us here then before we hit some sunshine again.

01:28
Yes, I this spring has been so weird and I don't dare to complain about it because the last two springs here all it's done is rain all of May and into the first half of June and it really ruined our farm to market garden So I'm not complaining I'm just saying it would be nice to see the Sun peek out a little bit this weekend. That's all I'm saying Okay, so you guys how did you get your name number one?

01:57
Well, let me tell you, um we bought this place um about eight years ago and it's located on Law Road in Grafton, Ohio. um we were brainstorming for a name and we're thinking of crazy different names we could name an alpaca farm. And I said, what about outlaw farm? And she says, what do mean? We're not outlaws. And I said, you know, but we're on Law Road. So that made a lot of sense and it stuck. we ran with it.

02:25
And again, it's attention grabbing. of the reason I love this so much is because part of the way I find people to talk to is by you guys' names. And I saw Outlaw Farm, Alpacas, and went, oh yes, I must find out about them. Okay, so when did you get into this? Well, we got into it around 2018. We bought this place and...

02:52
It was, it was really in need of some work. So we cleaned up the old barn, which was built in like, I say the late 1800s, a lot of cleanup. We cleaned it up, made it look nice. And we thought, yeah, let's get a couple of animals because it's such a nice barn. We could use some more pets because we have the land now. Well, my wife has a cousin that has alpacas as pets. So she mentioned alpacas. She contacted her cousin and they said, you know, we'll sell you a couple.

03:22
So we bought four pets, two males, two females, and it just went from there. um She started researching alpacas and the fiber and the showing and the breeding. And she just wanted to make it a business because she was set to retire in a couple of years and she wanted something to do. So that's, that's basically how it started. minor midlife crisis situation. Small one.

03:50
I just did the same thing almost three years ago because my youngest was going to be moving out, youngest of four, and I didn't want to face emptiness syndrome without a project. So I started this podcast. So I'm right there with you. Awesome. I get it. It's really hard when your life changes in a big way and women tend to find projects and I won't say what men tend to find. And that would be a very terrible thing to say.

04:18
I don't think that men necessarily find projects. I think that men find distractions. I'd have to disagree because I have a lot of projects. Because of the farm, he has a lot of I mean the men who are enlightened. You're enlightened, Steve. We'll give you that today. You are an enlightened soul. Awesome. Thank you. So uh do you guys, I want to talk about the alpacas because I haven't really talked in depth with anybody about them. But do you have other animals as well?

04:47
Yes, we right now we're at 34 alpacas and we are expecting nine creas, which are the babies. Anytime I have our first one actually do now and they'll birth all the way through probably the end of September. But we also have five goats, just pets, all males, weathers and then 30. Oh, let me see where we at. We're at about 40 chickens, I think, and six ducks.

05:15
aside from numerous dogs and barn cats and the like. Whatever else shows up on the property, know. Yeah, I saw you have barn kittens right now. Yes, we seem to have. had a mama kitty that kind of hung around and now her kids came seem to come here and live and. Add more barn kittens to our farm, so I think we just have two. Those are the only two I have seen so far.

05:44
But there could be more. For everybody listening, if you want to see some really cute kittens, go to Alpaca's Farm, the Facebook page, because there's a couple photos and they are very sweet. um I am a sucker for a barn kitten. We have two females right now who I suspect are pregnant. And if they are, they're probably due at the very end of June versus July. And I am so looking forward to barn kittens again, because we haven't had any in a couple of years.

06:14
They're lot of fun. They're cute. It's fun to watch them grow up. They keep the mice population down too. Oh my God. Yes. When we bought this place back in 2020, it was August and the big old pole barn that was on the property was empty except for all these little packets that were ripped open on the ground in the pole barn. And come to find out it was rat poison basically because

06:44
We had a pretty good mouse issue going on in that pole barn that we didn't know about. And so my husband was out puttering around in the fall and he had opened up one of the drawers on the old workbench in the pole barn. And he came in and he said, do you have a minute? And I said, yes, what? And he said, come with me. So I walk out to the pole barn and he's like, be quiet and just look, just look. And he opens this little drawer in the workbench.

07:11
and there's four little tiny field mice babies all curled up sleeping in the drawer. He says, uh we need to get some cats. He said, cause where there's that many babies, there's lots more mice. So, okay. So we ended up getting like three cats and then we had a stray show up. She was a female. She had babies. I think she had three or four litters in a couple of years. And one of her daughters had a litter and

07:39
The thing with barn cats is that barn cats flake off or they get killed by cars. And so every year we lose a couple. So I'm very excited that we have kittens coming, I hope. We don't keep tons of cats, but when there's new babies, it's fun and everybody likes a kitten. So we usually find homes for them pretty easily.

08:03
Yeah, we try to do. I mean, there's some people interested in the kitties and when they're old enough, I'm sure we can we can get them some good homes. Yeah, I just I get real antsy when I talk about the barn cats because the big thing is they and neuter your pets and I agree completely stay and neuter your pets unless you intend to breed them as a business. But when it comes to barn cats, barn cats have a job. Yeah, yeah, it is not the same premise is not the same thing so.

08:33
I try to walk a fine line between, yes, have millions of animals on your property that you can't afford and that aren't being treated well. Don't do that. That's not a good plan. Have a plan. S...