We were able to reopen our farm store, Echo Valley Fruit & Fiber, in connection with Farm Day, and our first guests started arriving just before 9am. With more than 200 visitors, we were busy nearly every minute! It was wonderful to get acquainted with not only the out-of-towners who saw our advertising, but to visit with the local people, as well. We had a coloring station for kids, informational handouts, refreshments, and tours of the ranch.
Bucky Sherman, our new Ranch Manager in Oklahoma, who will also be profiled in our next issue of The Diamond Digest, did an excellent job showing people the alpacas and letting them visit with our herdsire extraordinaire, Enchantment's Monjeau, who LOVES visitors. Other Alpacas were very curious and came in the barn to check out the visitors. At one time we had more than 22 cars in our parking lot. It was such a successful day, and we have had a lot of followup interest from that event.
Our Ranch Manager, Vanessa Minnick, was able to do a great interview with a local radio station, and it ran numerous times in the week prior to Saturday's event. The local paper in Bath County, The Recorder, did a full-page color spread on the animals and those who visited our farm. It was superb coverage. Kudos to Vanessa for her ingenuity! We had over 70 visitors and did a brisk business at our farm store, too! The people in the area have been very supportive of our property and love to come visit the animals. We were excited to share this day with them, and provided light refreshments and a goody bag to every visitor.