Eagle Eye Farm
Life...definitely a journey with many unexpected turns, peaks, and valleys...often taking you on adventures unforeseen. In 2016, Dawn and I (Kerri) needed a change. I am a physician and she worked as a healthcare administrator. We worked too many hours, didn't spend enough time with family, and each day became monotonous. So, we moved from St. Louis to Duluth — from a bustling suburb to 27 miles outside of town. Definitely an adventure. It was there that we started our alpaca farm. Dawn has always been a huge animal lover and had a fascination with alpacas for as long as she can remember. We purchased our first animal in the fall of 2018. She cleared land, put up pasture fencing, and oversaw the building of a barn. Eagle Eye Farm was founded. Our goal — 3 alpacas. That quickly turned into around 15 or so alpacas within 6 months.
In 2019, we decided to move closer to the Twin Cities. We wanted a place better suited for agritourism and for our expanding herd. We found a beautiful piece of property in River Falls, Wisconsin, in the scenic St. Croix Valley. We moved our growing herd of alpacas, two pigs, and some chickens. Another adventure indeed. Dawn visioned and oversaw the property development to what it is now. As the primary animal caretaker, Dawn has grown our alpaca herd to 49, with around 20 babies due this summer. We also have Valais Blacknose Sheep, mini Highland cattle, llamas, babydoll sheep, English Angora bunnies, kune kune pigs, and an eclectic mix of chickens. In 2022, we were named the #1 small alpaca farm in the country by the Alpaca Owners Association based on points obtained for showing our award-winning alpacas. Eagle Eye Farm now has over 110 animals and offers farm tours, alpaca yoga, summer camps, and many other educational opportunities throughout the year. You can check out our farm at www.eagleeyefarm.net.
We shear our alpacas once a year. We take their wool and have it processed at a mill. From that, we create the vast majority of items that we have in our store, All Things Sheared at Eagle Eye Farm (www.allthingssheared.com). Alpaca has so many great characteristics: soft, warmer than wool, hypoallergenic, flame retardant, and antimicrobial. The farm store and all it has evolved into...yet another adventure for sure. In the past couple of years, we have expanded to have an apiary on our farm, Soaring Bee Apiary at Eagle Eye Farm. I am the beekeeper. It is through this apiary that we produce many different types of infused, creamed, spreadable, and raw honeys. This sparked my creativity. I started hand-pouring beeswax candles. This is my happy place. The gentle honey smell the candles provide is absolutely soothing to my soul. The variety of shapes that can be created is so fun. This has definitely been an unexpected, but oh-so-enjoyable adventure.
Most recently, I started creating an all-natural skincare line. I use only the most natural ingredients possible. We started with sheep's milk soap — both felted and unfelted in alpaca fleece. Sheep's milk is more moisturizing with a higher lipid content than goat's milk soap. Our soaps are felted in alpaca fleece, which provides a loofah and decreased waste of the soap by approximately 25%. We are focusing on products that use honey and beeswax from our apiary and lavender from our lavender field with over 1,000 plants. We are slowly introducing more products, but will soon offer a full complement of skin care including balms, salves, masks, sugar scrubs, salt scrubs, body butters, lotions, etc. We are proud to have so many products in production. This has been probably the most unanticipated adventure of them all. But, as they say, the biggest risk often reaps the largest rewards...hopefully, this is true.
We have so many more products we are eager to create. Sustainability is definitely on our minds. We are extremely proud of all that we have accomplished, both in terms of our farm/animals and our store/products. We are eager to see what other adventures life will bring.
Kerri and Dawn
