After their children left home, Jenny and her husband Graham found themselves rattling around in a huge house. ‘We decided to move and looked everywhere. Graham always wanted to be near a mountain, and I wanted to be near water. We looked at the Hunter Valley and the mountains area. Coming down here was the best thing we ever did. As soon as we saw this house, we just looked at each other and said yes, before we even came inside. That was 31 years ago.’

When Jenny and Graham started out with alpacas, they were fairly novel. ‘Now there are plenty of alpaca places, but not many people knew about alpacas a few decades ago. We had a van with Kingdale Alpacas in big letters down the side. It wasn’t always easy. We moved down with no farming experience, and we launched ourselves into alpacas. Having done that, we thought about opening a shop. The Bank of NSW in Cobargo was up for sale, and I thought it would be fun to buy that. One of the kids could live upstairs and we could have an alpaca shop downstairs. A couple of weeks later, the house on the corner opposite the general store in Tilba was for sale. Graham said that’d be a good place for a shop. I thought, what have I said? Because we had no retail experience either! Still, we opened a shop, which we had for many good years. If you live in a tourist place, you’ve got to have your shop open seven days a week. We didn’t see much of each other, because while one was doing the farm, the other was at the shop.’

Over the years about 200 alpacas have lived in Dignams Creek at Jenny’s place and they’ve all had names. One day Christabel was having a cria (the name for a baby alpaca) which delayed opening the shop. Jenny called the general store explaining the situation and, when she finally got to open the shop, found a helpful note had been placed saying, ‘Having a baby back in 10 minutes’. Another beautiful brown alpaca who sometimes escapes is called Tiramisu. The alpacas are usually named after something sweet – Praline, Honey Bun – or their colour – like Zane Gray and Nimbus. Yes, alpacas spit, but if you just treat them with respect, they usually don’t. They can kick too but not often.

You can find Jenny’s beautifully spun alpaca wool at the Cobargo Creators where she volunteers. She is also part of the Red Cross. ‘We do fundraising efforts and cater for funerals and other events, providing sandwiches, slices, cakes, tea and coffee. It’s a lovely thing to offer families at a difficult time. And all us girls, we all know what we have to do. We all work well and just quietly go about what we’re doing. And if you’re on the other side, as we were when Graham died, it’s just such a wonderful thing to have somebody you know who has unpacked all the cups, turned on the urn and made all these good things to eat.

‘We have such a nice community. Couldn’t think of a better one. It’s a very tight community that has gotten closer, possibly because of the fires. It’s a community that’s got some strength and solidarity about it. People say yes to helping each other. They often don’t let you pay, because you’ve helped them at another time, fed their animals, made them a hat. It all goes around and around. People genuinely mean it when they say, “If you need any help, let me know.”

‘I’m trying to be as independent as I can be, and my neighbours keep an eye on me. I bought a chainsaw recently. I was having a lovely time getting rid of the revegetation. My son-in-law came over and said I shouldn’t do more of that because it was too dangerous. I thought, what a spoil sport! I wasn’t going to have an accident. I was just having a lovely time with it. I definitely don’t underestimate how dangerous they are, but chainsaws are a lot of fun.’

Flick Ruby

Photos: Jenny in the early days of their alpaca farm.  Photos Graham Froud

Listen to an interview with Jenny on this month’s Triangle Podcast and for some Red Cross recipes check out this month’s Recipes: Cherry ripe slice, Lemon slice, Vanilla slice.