Staff Picks: Keep calm, walk an alpaca

A family from Hyde Park is welcoming the public to its historic Hudson Valley countryside farm as they navigate what it means to be farmers.
Couple Andrea Parent-Tibbetts and Michael Tibbetts relocated their family to the Clover Brooke Farm in Sept. 2016, ordered a tractor and started their attempt at owning a farm and raising animals from scratch.
“My days were spent sketching barn renovations, fencing plans, watching tractor safety videos, walking the pastures pulling toxic plants, cleaning barns that hadn’t seen a broom in decades and meeting people stopping by to welcome us to the area,” Andrea writes.
In their ventures at learning, they began offering llama treks and educational visits to the public.
Now an Airbnb sensation, visits begin with a brief introduction to Llama/Alpaca 101 and a discussion on why these soft and fluffy critters are the new Unicorn of animals.
Llama/Alpaca treks are guided through gentle pastures, paddocks, past a stocked Bass pond with room for plenty of Llama/Alpaca selfies along the way.
 
Visits are by appointment only via e-mail or through Airbnb. 

News 12 Digital staffers Kristy O'Connell and Erin Pflaumer visited the farm to see what it was all about. Check out the photos below!