BERLIN, Md. \u2013 A short drive from the Ocean City boardwalk, just outside of Berlin, Ocean Breeze Alpacas trades saltwater for pastures. Founded by Nancy Taylor, this working farm is a model of sustainable agritourism on the Eastern Shore.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just had a passion for knitting for a long, long time. Colors, textures, patterns. And so it was just a fun hobby at first. And now, now it\u2019s turned into more of a business\u201d, Nancy tells WMDT.<\/p>\n
And that business gets its yarn straight from the source. The star of the show? Alpacas! \u2013 gentle, cold-weather-loving cousins to the llama that originate from the Andes Mountains. But this herd of curious, fluffy camelids is proving that life is spit-tacular where the beach meets the fleece.<\/p>\n
It starts with an annual alpaca shearing \u2013 turning raw fleece into sustainable, homegrown fiber. A few years ago, Marina Kain joined the farm, bringing a shared passion for alpacas, spinning, weaving, and handmade fiber products.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey get shorn once a year so that we can turn their fur into yarn. We shear them, and then we bag the fiber and hang it in our barn\u201d, says Marina.<\/p>\n
\u201cI met Marina at one of the shows that we were doing, and she wanted to volunteer and it just worked out perfect because she has so many skills that I don\u2019t have\u201d, says Nancy Taylor.<\/p>\n
And Marina\u2019s skills have helped drive the business with a shop stocked with goodies made right here on the farm.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a ton of hand-knitted goods by women in our community, as well as yarn from our animals, different clothing, and other commercial alpaca products.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ocean Breeze Alpacas farm store is open every Saturday from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM. If you\u2019d like to visit the farm or shop outside of their regular Saturday hours, you can contact them in advance. Visit Ocean Breeze Alpacas<\/a> for more information.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERLIN, Md. \u2013 A short drive from the Ocean City boardwalk, just outside of Berlin, Ocean Breeze Alpacas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[99],"tags":[112,190],"class_list":["post-160360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-berlin","tag-germany"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117220910287522559","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}