Monroe celebrating a new agritourism destination where visitors can interact with a variety of farm animals and experience a slower pace of life.
Tapestry Acres Co-owner Tari Maxfield said the multi-generational farm features alpacas, highland cows, Kunekune pigs, Nigerian dwarf goats, mini donkeys, mini horses, and chickens. Maxfield said the family previously operated an alpaca farm in Minnesota before moving to Tennessee to find a larger location.
“I think that that has kind of gotten left behind a bit in our world,” Maxfield said, “So it’s very calming, it’s a very, very different experience and the it helps with what what I enjoy personally is, is being able to introduce children to animals.”
Maxfield said the farm allows guests to book walks with alpacas and tour the grounds to learn about the different species on-site. Maxfield said the property has undergone significant infrastructure improvements, including the installation of fencing, trails, and roads to facilitate the visitor experience.
“I hope we have a place where people can come and relax and get to know nature and and just enjoy their families and their time and walk around and wander and and look at the animals and be able to to just enjoy, it’s a very, very peaceful experience,” Maxfield said.
The farm also features an on-site store that sells a variety of handmade goods and fiber products. Maxfield said the shop offers yarns labeled with the specific name of the animal the fiber came from, such as Andy or Lucy, which are milled locally.
“We also have what’s called a fiber pool so we send a part of our clip to the fiber pool and that is pulled together with other farms in the US, it’s in Massachusetts and they pull it all together and use their machinery, they have the sock machine, the mitten machine and such so they they blend it all together and so some of our fiber will be in them but we don’t know which ones,” Maxfield said. “So that we buy it back to be what we would like like to sell so not everything they make do we sell but many of the things we do.”
Maxfield said the farm operates a food truck on Saturdays that serves smash burgers to create a gathering place for the community. Maxfield said the long-term vision for the property includes the addition of lodging options to allow for weekend staycations.
“I would like them to just be able to to kind of take a step away from the busyness of the world and kind of get back to the simplicity of of animals and farm life and being able to just kind of have the joy, seeing the the baby animals or the grown animals or walking an alpaca, doing something just a little bit out of their box,” Maxfield said.