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Hums of Faith Suri Farm is owned and operated by Jim and Laurie Konyn. We purchased this parcel in the summer of 1997, for the purpose of building a log home. We were married in November of that year and were able to move into our new home in December of 1997. We have 7 children between us and 11 grandchildren. Laurie was born and lived her early life on a dairy farm, just 3 miles from here. Now she works as a bookkeeper, but hopes to retire in a couple of years. I was raised and spent my early life in
Marinette
,
WI
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My grandparents farmed and I always loved the farm life. I served almost 3 years in the US Army during the early 70’s. After leaving the service, I lived in
Peshtigo
,
WI
. working at a paper mill for 30 years. Laurie also lived in Peshtigo where she raised her family. We met on a blind date in December 1996 and have been together since then.
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Together we enjoy raising a large vegetable garden as well as several flower gardens. Besides growing the usual items, each year we grow enough cabbage to make about 15 gallons of sauerkraut which we share with family members. We also grow enough rutabagas to supply the annual church fall dinner. Laurie has a variety of other interests including canning, cooking, baking, sewing, crocheting and other needle crafts. She is looking forward to learning how to spin Suri fiber. Another interest for me is racing pigeons, having started as a 12 year old boy with my grandfather. |
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I am a member of the American Racing Pigeon Union and fly in the Green Bay & Northside Homing Pigeon Club and also in the
Fox River
Valley
and Lakeshore Concourse. I have served as secretary, treasurer and race secretary for the
Green Bay
club. I have learned a lot about animal/bird health, record keeping and genetics by working with my pigeons. I am very interested in genetics and hope to be able to use some of the information I have learned with pigeons when breeding the alpacas.
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We choose our name “Hums of Faith Suris” because the Suris hum and going into this venture, we are putting our faith in God to help us succeed. We chose our slogan “Raising Alpacas with Faith, Hope and Love” because that is how we try to live or lives. We believe in “giving back” and had been looking for a way to be good stewards of our land ever since we moved here. Nothing really fit, until we discovered alpacas. We both feel that this is what we want to do for the rest of our lives - Live here and raise Suris with Faith, Hope and Love.
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We are also a host farm for the Suri Network 4H and FFA program that has just been started in the
summer of 2008. We are looking forward to working with the youngsters and teaching them about
the Suri alpaca.
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