Autumn Musing

The season is unfolding. The trees are turning a burnished shade, shedding leaves and their wonderful produce; conkers, acorns or apples. It feels like a good time to have a clear out ahead of Christmas, to ready your house and store cupboard with jams and chutneys and gather warm bedding, throws and blankets to ensure warmth over winter.

Our hedges have been cut by lovely farmer Walter and their crisp edges look great against the returned verdent green of our fields. The alpaca and sheep spend their days eating this good Autumn grass to stock up, pre the cold season returning.

We’ve taken delivery of lots of new stock for the website and for the Autumn and Christmas sales we are attending. New 100% baby alpaca fleece scarves are already selling out, as are our alpaca knit mittens. Cute new fleece creatures, like mini sculptures - each unique, are proving popular as Christmas gifts and our alpaca pillows, duvets and mattress toppers are being bought n d shipped throughout the UK and around the world. Our last overseas order went to Angola and the US before that! So funny how a tiny smallholding, perched on the Shropshire Hills, can be in touch with the world thanks to technology.

Several of our breeding females are pregnant, so we look forward to new babies next year from 3 new studs. Watch this space in April.

We will be back at Chelsea Flower Show and many of the other RHS shows again in 2019, our 4th year selling our Lou’s Poo, Alpaca Fertiliser range. Try it for your plants, a little goes a long way and our commercial growers and flower farmers love it.

Oh well, time to work in the fields today before gathering up our stock to go to yet another Autumn sale on Friday, this time in Newbury in Berkshire. Onward and upward.

Lou.

Romantic Bedding....Would you like a tiny sample?

Valentines Day is just around the corner and I've noticed a spike in demand for one of my products on the website: the alpaca bedding is flying out the door.... whooooosh!

In particular the alpaca pillows are the most popular with customers choosing to change from standard pillows (filled with feather or synthetics) to luxury alpaca fleece. Turns out there are a range of reasons: Many customers are telling me that they are beginning to have issues with allergies or sore throats in the mornings and are changing to alpaca fibre products due to a friend's recommendation.

I confess I was a tadge skeptical about the hypoallergenic qualities of alpaca fleece so I decided to carry out my very own tip-top scientific experiment to test the theory. First I hunted down three itchy, scratch, allergic-type people.... one a lovely builder, one a gorgeous farmer, one a wonderful (though sneezy) sister. I forced them to place raw (unwashed) alpaca fleece next to their skin to see what would occur....[Evil me!] Boringly nothing happened; no spots, sneezing or itching took place. All were gob-smacked. All are converts. I am convinced.

If you feel you'd like to put the allergy theory to the test contact me at aathelarches@gmail.com and I'll send you a tiny sample of alpaca fleece that you can keep close to your skin. Maybe an alpaca pillow would suit you or another family member. It's certainly a gorgeous Valentine gift for a loved one.

Other customers are telling me that they are changing to alpaca just for the luxury. Even my 10yo sleeps better with his alpaca pillows because they are firm yet so, so soft.

Happy sleeping.....