SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — As temperatures continue to climb across East County, the heat doesn’t let up when the sun goes down.
For Barbara Davies and her husband, staying cool is a daily priority—not just for themselves, but for the animals that call their four-acre ranch home.
Davies and her husband own and operate 'A Simpler Time', where they care for a variety of livestock, including their popular alpacas.
On especially hot days, Davies says the animals have several ways to cool off.
“They’ve got tubs they can get in,” Davies said. “We can come out with a hose and spray their bellies down, and they love that.”
The ranch also uses stock tanks and automatic watering systems to make sure the animals have constant access to water.
“Of course, they’re on automatic water, so that just keeps refilling for them to drink,” Davies said.
Keeping the animals comfortable also starts before the summer heat arrives. Alpacas need to be shorn once a year, and Davies says they make sure it happens early in the season.
“It’s super important for alpacas to be shorn once a year,” she said. “So it’s only once a year, but we do it early before the summer heat really hits.”
With extreme heat affecting the inland valleys, managing the animals can be an around-the-clock responsibility. For the Davies family, though, ranch life has become more than a job. It’s a family business and a way of life they never originally planned.
“We didn’t even really have any idea that this would be our full-time living for our family, like a family business,” Davies said.
Their journey was briefly halted after a devastating loss. In 2003, Davies and her family lost their home in the Cedar Fire. While the fire destroyed their home, the family was able to escape safely with their animals and the barn where they turned their alpaca fur/coat into yarn and other things.
“We got all our family out. We got all the animals out,” Davies said. “That was definitely a blessing.”
When they returned, there was significant work to be done. Water lines across the property had burned, making it difficult to even make the land habitable again.
“It took us a good maybe three months to get even that habitable here where we could bring the animals back,” Davies said.
More than two decades later, the family has rebuilt from the ground up—creating not only a home, but capitalizing on a thriving business.
“We have been able to rebuild. We’ve been able to build the business bigger and better than ever,” Davies said.
And now, even as another round of extreme heat settles over East County, the Davies family continues taking the necessary steps to protect their animals—and keep their ranch running through the summer heat.
