Props which belong to The Wellbeing Farm
Let’s start with the main attraction – the animals…
The bowtie-wearing Llamas put The Wellbeing Farm on the map. That’s why I’ve named my book ‘Why Put A Bow Tie On A Llama’. Just before the point where the bowtie went on, I was facing near bankruptcy – it was almost that the bow tie became my saving point. There’s more about this in my book. [Link to book section]
When I started the farm I faced a dilemma – you see before The Wellbeing Farm arrived, Wheatsheaf Hill Farm was a DIY livery yard. Horse owners would arrive on a daily basis to tend to and exercise their horses – in fact, the Wedding Barn used to be the indoor arena and the toilets for the Wedding Barn were the stables!
So when I started changing the farm, we needed to know what animal would be able to use the stables and also cope with the climate. Llamas ticked all the boxes.
Eight years’ ago, Llamas weren’t that trendy (like they are today). There were no Llama providers nearby so we had to travel to Northampton to purchase them. Mary was known as one of the best Llama trainers in the country and ran a very successful Llama trekking business – Catanger Llamas. Mary even has the domain http://www.llamatrekking.co.uk/
Originally we started off as a Llama Trekking business and we ran regular treks along the roads around the farm and visits to the local reservoirs. It was when we started the weddings from the farm and I literally didn’t know what to do with the Llamas was when I thought could we incorporate them in some way into our weddings?
The rest is history and we now have four Llamas (Vincent, Laurie, Ezra and Yasser). Laurie is very special as he’s our leaping llama! No fence can keep Laurie in and you’ll often find him just wandering around the farm grounds – he’s a fantastic attraction. We also have two donkeys (Crackerjack and Gypsy) who came from the Donkey Sanctuary and two alpacas (Winston and Augustus). There will be a lot more stories about the animals, how we look after them, what they get up to and their stories to follow….
