People Who Live at the End of Dirt Roads: Terry and Sandy Stapley – Deseret Peak Alpaca Ranch

This article is part of a series highlighting families who have embraced Georgics in significant ways.

After a very nice life in the heart of Saratoga Springs, Utah, the Stapley’s have made a drastic lifestyle change. 

They sold their beautiful home of 13 years, and moved to 10 acres, a house 1/3 the size of their previous home, a patch of corn and a herd of Alpaca. 

Terry and Sandy Stapley have just completed their fifth month of ranch life.  I recently visited their new alpaca ranch and spent some time talking about life on the ranch, the differences from living in suburbia, and why they did it.

SB:

It is lovely here but Grantsville, Utah is kind of in the middle of no-where. Why here?

SS:

Well, we believe that we were Providential influenced in this direction and we were able to find 10 acres in our price range.

SB:

But did you feel that to have a ranch and be more self sufficient, you would need to move out away from it all?

SS:

No, we believed all along that having acreage, even in town, would give us a certain level of seclusion, as we planned to be pretty much self-contained.

SB:

Great. Tell me about you vision for the ranch.  You and I have spent many hours talking about this kind of thing, what’s your ranch vision?

SS:

We have always had a dream of going back to basics, growing our own food, teaching our children and especially our grand-children the laws of life, but you can’t teach what you don’t know.  Having the animals as a part of this way of life is helping us learn and teach our children the very basics of living, that you have to nurture life, you have to care for that life, that the world is full of life beyond our personal needs and that we need to be responsible for living things that are dependent on us.

Our children and our grand-children are coming alive in this environment.  They are grasping the whole idea of the American Dream, of owning a home, having a cottage industry, supporting yourself by your own labor. It is a dream come true to see those grand-babies love the chickens and ranch dogs and the alpaca.

SB:

What are the most drastic changes you have noticed with this move from suburbia to a small ranch that you are—outside of the house—literally building from the ground up?

SS:

I would have to say the realization that conveniences are not what makes life enjoyable. To understand that the life of convenience we had at our  finger tips in Saratoga Springs, of running to the shopping malls and grocery stores at every whim, the movie theatres, having ready access to almost anything one can imagine, does not bring the greatest joy.  The greatest joy is to see what we have done to the land with our own hands.  As you can see it is not much at this point but we can see it and we know it is our own creation and effort that has brought it about.  Being exhausted at the end of the day and being joyful, that is far more gratifying than going to a movie.  Rather than watching others live life, we are living real life, close to the ground life and we love it. There is no greater satisfaction.

SB:

How exciting Sandy—without getting too personal, you have mentioned that this new lifestyle has infused some vitality in your relationship as husband and wife.  Can you expound on this?

SS:

That is very true. When you remove all the distractions, it is much easier to focus on the reasons why you are attracted to the person you married. Life becomes uncluttered and you see the value in your spouse more clearly.  The physical things around the ranch that I can’t do by myself, Terry is there to help me.  And I take care of him whether it is ensuring that he eats right or beautifying our home and he really notices.

The harmony and diversity we come face to face with in our daily struggle  to shape our land to our vision, has truly lead us to appreciate each other in ways that were less obvious in a world were we would go out to eat several times a week or engage in useless diversities all the time, for no purpose, simply for entertainment.

It take the unnecessary things of life away and brings it back to a whole new meaning of a man and a woman joined together, having dominion over the land and creating something uniquely yours.

SB:

You mentioned that Terry is happier now that he is engaged in this physically tough environment.  What do you mean?

SS:

In the specialized, competitive workforce of today, it is so easy to get lost in the shuffle, to become a number, to feel unappreciated and not honored for the divine gifts we possess.  But not here on the ranch.  When you pull it back to the basics of life and you are appreciated for what you can contribute physically, mentally and emotionally to the success of your home and your ranch, and you can clearly see what you have done—there is a great sense of satisfaction and a great feeling of worth.  But it’s not a false pride or pretense, it is genuine sense of self-satisfaction that comes no other way than by hard work and honest accomplishment.  It is kind of rare these days.

SB:

OK, tell me about the ranch itself and what you like about it.

SS:

They are cute little critters.  Alpaca are a means to an end for us, as I said before, we had always wanted to have a ranch, but we just couldn’t see how we would ever be able to afford it, but by creating an Alpaca ranch and purchasing the animals and breeding them and making use of their hair or fiber, we have found a means to live our dream.

The culture of the animals, their personalities and their pecking order, their relationships and just working with them is such a delight. There are a lot of natural relationship lessons to be learned in caring for a bunch of animals.  It makes everything so real.  It erodes all of the superficiality of  the world and the contest between equal rights and feminism and the whole world contest of “what is my place in the world?”  And it brings it down to a reality that we all have a place, and the animals play a very important part in this. There is such a peace and joy that comes from taking care of them.

SB:

Just one last question, you are struggling a bit with that corn patch there, can you think of any natural laws that you have violated in the process of this first batch of corn?

SS:

Yeah, if you don’t give it enough water it isn’t going to grow.  It is very interesting, taking into consideration the contour of the land, it is so important in getting plants to grow.  We’ve got plenty of sunshine and we thought we were giving them plenty of water, but the flow of the water and how long the water stayed on the plants and the depth of water penetration into the soil is a reality that you can not ignore—if you want to grow corn.

SB:

Thanks Sandy.  It is a real pleasure being here and seeing your progress.  Can others come and see what you are doing?

SS:

You bet.  We are happy to share what we are doing with anyone.  Just email us at sandrajstapley@gmail.com.