While considering retirement from a career in mining, Clark Otterness was looking for something to keep him busy. He read about an alpaca farm in an airline magazine and thought it sounded interesting.

Both he and his wife, Janet, come from agricultural backgrounds. Janet also majored in art in college, with an emphasis in fiber art, so raising alpacas seemed like a good fit.

The couple researched alpacas online, visited three farms in the area and while on vacation, they visited three alpaca ranches. Before leaving on their trip, the Otternesses had already purchased three alpacas with the intention of boarding them.

By the time they returned, they were ready to start searching for land to begin their alpaca farm.

"We bought two bred adult females and a male initially and boarded those," Clark said. "We lived in (Draper) in a subdivision with no place to put them.... We wound up buying land in Herriman. It took a year to get the land cleared off and build the house, barn and fencing."

Five years later, the Otternesses are witnessing their dream come to pass as their alpaca farm, known as Alta Mist Alpacas, continues to grow. They now have a herd of 10 breeding females and two males. This spring they added three crias, or baby alpacas, to their herd, and four more are expected in September. A wall full of ribbons inside the small fiber store in their home attests to the quality of the alpaca wool the Otternesses sell.

"There's a lot of different aspects to raising alpacas. People have them for a lot of different reasons," Clark said. "Our primary interest is in the fiber aspect. We're raising them for the fiber and utilizing the fiber to make products and sell products."

A little over a year ago Clark and Janet added giant angora rabbits to their farm to sell the fleece from the rabbits' rich fur.

"I do lots of fiber arts and so does (Clark) now," Janet said.

The Otternesses have a small fiber store in their home where they sell wool from their alpacas as well as products they make with the fibers. One of their best sellers is a mix of angora and alpaca that usually doesn't even make it through the monthly meeting of the local spinning guild Janet belongs to, she said with a smile.

To keep their fleece nice, the Otternesses feed the alpacas only grass hay and keep their diet at 12 percent protein. They also give the animals a pellet as a supplement. A professional shearer from Heber City comes to shear the animals.