Farm's fall market a hit among kids, adults alike | The Kingston Whig Standard

Joanne D’Amore is busy answering questions about her alpaca farm and the clothing and crafts she sells inside her boutique.

It’s a warm, sunny Saturday morning at Ruby Acres Alpaca Farm in Odessa, where the farm is hosting its second annual fall market. People are arriving in droves to visit the farm for the event, which featured dozens of vendors, a chip truck, live music and, of course, the farm’s signature alpacas.

“Oh my gosh,” D’Amore answered when asked about the turnout, which numbered well over 100 people just after 11 a.m. “It’s pretty darned good,” she remarked. “I haven’t really been out there, but I’m looking now and it’s really busy.”

D’Amore and her husband, Pete, created the event last year as a way to celebrate their farm, which they’ve had for four years, the last two of which they’ve been open to the public.

“Honestly, it just organically came about,” she said of the event. “We just thought, ‘You know what, we have a lot of people here, we have a lot of items here, let’s have a market. Let’s bring people in.’ People love being out here.”

So D’Amore put a call out for vendors, planned and organized the event, and it went off without a hitch. And to huge fanfare, she said.

“We started with 24 vendors, and we were slammed,” she recalled. “Even the chip truck guy, he couldn’t keep up. Every vendor, after the end of the day, said this was the best market they’d ever been to.”

Besides the annual event, the farm is open to the public, offering farm tours, hosting birthday parties, school tours and it also works with first responders, such as those in the military who are being reintegrated into work.

“We have a contract with the military where the soldiers returning to work can come out for a couple hours doing something that is not military related, but it gets them back into the groove of a work schedule,” D’Amore said.

The family farm also works with school boards, accepting students in need of volunteer hours.

“We teach the kids the hard work,” D’Amore said. “With caring for animals comes the husbandry with it. High school students come out to get their high school hours, so they learn how to work with animals, they shovel poop, which gives them the good hard work that parents are really wanting for them.”

But on this day, like many others, people are here as much for the animals as anything. Besides the 33 alpaca, the farm also has two emus and a couple of turkeys, Ken and Jerry.

“Ben we sold, because he was assaultive,” D’Amore explains to an inquisitive visitor who had remarked at how docile one of the birds is.

“Jerry, she loves everybody,” D’Amore replied.

The D’Amores previously owned horses, but through a twist of fate ended up owning two alpacas.

“We bought them by accident,” D’Amore said. “I went to go look at a horse, and (the owner) had had these alpacas, Scotch and Whiskey, the two brown ones,” she said, pointing out to the yard.

When she was told they were available for $250 each, she couldn’t resist.

As she researched how to care for her new animals, D’Amore said she realized the cost of caring for them was far less than what she was paying to care for her horses.

“They were so easy to care for. I could do their vaccines, their teeth, I learned how to do their sheering. I could do everything myself,” she said. “I had two horses seen by the vet and it cost me $600 for 30 seconds for him to put a needle in and say ,‘It’s OK.’”

That was the end of her days owning horses.

“I got the two male alpacas and I decided to sell the horses. I sold all the horses and just started buying more alpacas,” she said.

A couple of years ago, they started breeding the alpacas, she said, and they now sell the males after they’re over the age of two.

So far this year, they’ve welcomed eight baby alpacas to the clan.

Besides being low maintenance and affordable, they’re darned cute. Just ask the hundreds of visitors snapping selfies and fawning over them on Saturday.

“The smiles,” D’Amore answered when asked what makes the event and the farm so enjoyable for her. “Making everybody happy.”

And that’s not just the children, who numbered in the dozens on Saturday.

“A lot of adults get a lot more out of it than kids,” she said with a laugh. “Obviously, yes, the kids, but the adults love it here.”