“Every day is an adventure at Kloud 9 Acres” alpaca farm.
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Those farm adventures inspired Braddon Koppert to write and publish his first children’s book, Snickers Gets a Visitor.
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“We moved here (from Woodstock) to kind of get into the county, start a bit of a hobby farm,” said Koppert of the move to Norwich Township.
“We’ve always loved animals,” said his wife Damaris Koppert. “So, ‘what kind of animals do we want to have here?’”
After doing some research, they knew alpacas would be ideal.
“They’re the easiest farm animal you’re going to keep on a hobby farm,” said Brandon. “They are just so low maintenance, low food costs… they’re just these fluffy little clouds.”
Alpacas from South America are closely related to llamas – both are in the camel family – but alpacas are about half the size. The fiber, similar to sheep’s wool, is highly desirable and they are sheared annually in the late spring to make the wool/yarn.
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Brandon said it took about three years to complete the book-writing process, which included a full year developing a solid first draft. The first of many drafts.
“Really it was our donkey that brought it all together,” Damaris noted.
Snickers, the title character, is based on their donkey at Kloud 9 Acres, who is one of the stars on their TikTok channel, which has about 600,000 followers, and Instagram, which has about 12,000 followers.
“Donkeys are known to be very protective,” she said. “They are guarding animals. It took some time for him to get used to the alpacas, but he is super sweet.”
Alpacas also feature prominently, of course, along with the main character Gunnar, who is based on their five-year-old son, also Gunnar.
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“If it does well, we have plans to write a bunch more to have a series – their adventures on the farm,” said Brandon.
Another unpublished book in the series has already been written.
Nicholas Olsen from St. Thomas did the illustrations, which took about one year.
“He (Olsen) did a phenomenal job,” said Damaris. “Brandon wrote a little bit about what he was picturing on the page and the illustrator really made that come to life.”
Snickers Gets a Visitor was officially published on Dec. 15. Hard copies are available online from amazon.ca ($14.89) and amazon.com ($10.95) on a print-to-order basis.
“We’ve always encouraged reading with the kids,” said Brandon. “Get them to like books, that’s the big thing. Do it together.”
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“It’s also educational, just in regards to farm life,” said Damaris. “In this case, the visitor is a ferrier, and some people don’t know what a ferrier is… so that’s kind of fun. It’s just super simple, but it does teach kids about that as well.”
Hint… it has something to do with hoof care.
“The feedback we’ve had has been really good,” said Damaris.
“It’s a nice, entertaining book,” Brandon agreed.
The book has also proven to be a hit with their own three young children.
“Our two-year-old and five-year-old will sit down together. I’ve read it to them I don’t know how many times,” said Damaris, “and they will still sit and read the whole thing with me. I’m always surprised because we’ve read this thing so many times.”
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