To celebrate National Alpaca Day, Hill Crest Alpaca Farm hosted a farm festival, complete with a pony ride, carnival games and, for the highlight of the event, feeding the alpacas.

Kelly Michalski has 10 alpacas and organizes most of the Hill Crest events, including the farm festival on Saturday, Sept. 28 and 29.

The event has been “awesome,” she said.

“The guests seem to be enjoying themselves a lot,” she added. “We heard a few comments that this is an awesome, well put together event.”

Michalski organized the event like a carnival. Visitors could buy tickets for carnival games, a snack stand and to feed the alpacas.

“The alpacas are all full of treats now,” said Shirley Lanouette, who started the farm in 2006 with her husband, Roger.

Sue Hood, the godmother of Shirley and Roger Lanouette’s great granddaughter, sold guests carnival tickets at the event.

“It’s always good to give them a hand when they need some help,” she said. “All the proceeds can actually go to the farm.”

So far the farm festival has been the farm’s biggest event this year, Shirley Lanoutte said.

“The whole lot across the street was full with cars,” Roger Lanouette said. “The winery’s generous enough to allow us to use that area for parking, and that was all full yesterday.”

He estimated that on Saturday the farm saw “at least” 400 or 450 guests, but Shirley Lanouette said she would “venture to guess probably at least 1,000” people had visited so far.

Hood assessed how many guests had visited the farm based on how busy she’d been.

“I sat here all day yesterday and just kept selling tickets, she said. “That’s all I was doing, selling tickets.”

Through her ticket sales, Hood watched excitement light up kids’ faces.

“They know they’re going to do something fun, especially when they get ready to feed the alpacas,” Hood said. “Most of the kids really enjoy [getting] close and personal with them.”