Husband-and-wife team Karen Ball and Russell Ratti (pictured) have been raising alpacas for 12 years. The family-owned operation also consists of their daughter Michaela Ratti and sons Joshua, Joseph, Benjamin and Samuel Swink.
Together, the Heart and Soul Alpacas and Spinnery team can handle everything from shearing the animals to processing the fleece in their own fiber mill. They also mentor new alpaca owners and provide board for those without ranches.
Heart and Spinnery sells its own compost as well as the handiwork of Ball’s mother Kathy Steven, who knits everything from hats and mittens to rugs and ponchos with the alpaca fleece. “Our business allows us to center our livelihood around our family, rather than our family around our livelihood,” Ball says. “We probably work harder and longer because of it, but we love what we’re doing.”
Alpacas are sheared once a year at Heart and Soul Alpacas and Spinnery in Penn Valley. Alpacas, a domesticated species bred by humans thousands of years ago in South America, do not shed and need periodic shearing.
During the process, the animal’s feet are secured to a table and one person holds the animal’s head at all times to keep it from moving or hurting itself.
The table rotates, and the fleece is sheared into three parts: the shoulders (prime blanket material), the neck and hip, and the legs and tail. How the fleece is used depends on its quality.
“These animals are very calming,” says Russell Ratti, who owns Heart and Soul with his wife Karen. “I’ve been working with them for 13 years, and just to be around them is calming.”
The Family Fleece
Heart and Soul Alpacas & Spinnery in Penn Valley