The Emerald Desert

Nestled in green hills and many, many trees, the Emerald Desert is a little farm that serves home to a colorful melting-pot herd of llamas, alpacas, and all the adventures that come with them.

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Kai, coming to say hello 

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Comet and Nimbus, half brothers, once hated each other. They would posture and puff themselves up whenever they saw each other, pinning their ears and threatening to spit.  Now, they share a pasture, happily grazing together and enjoying each others’ company. 

Half a year ago, I was approached with what I thought was the perfect home for Nimbus. One that was aware of his behavioral issues and prepared to handle them, who wanted to give him the one-on-one attention and care I knew he would thrive with.  Unfortunately, it fell through. When I came home this winter, I immediately realized Nimbus cannot leave.  His pasterns have begun to drop. They are even worse than Comet’s.  Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to be in pain. He doesn’t show any signs of discomfort like Comet did. He doesn’t grind his teeth, shift his weight, kush excessively or tense his face. He still plays and runs and asks for back rubs and cookies. Not looking at his legs, you wouldn’t know anything is wrong with him.  But I’m still left with some very difficult decisions. I cannot and will not allow any animal in my care to suffer, and there is no way to cure dropped pasterns.  For now, his quality of life is maintained. All I can do for now is have my mom keep me closely updated on how he’s doing.  

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Blue eyes.  Silas above, Irish below 

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“Hello!” 

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Nimbus and Comet get the whole lower pasture to themselves! 

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Rialto, enjoying the sunlight and coming to check out what I’m doing

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Nimbus

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Sweet Silas

For the first time ever, my herd is down to one alpaca.  Anika and Coco are currently visiting with Coco (and Irish’s) breeder, who is greatly enjoying their company! As I have Rialto home now and he is an intact male (young, but still intact), I am playing it safe and removing any possibility of unintentional breedings by relocating my female while our fences are still being renovated. 

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Photogenic Kai!

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Comet 

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Merry Christmas, from our herd to yours! <3 

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Comet has also been doing well! He seemed delighted to see me, and I loved getting to spend some quality time with him. Just like old times, I sat out in the pasture with him, brushing him and talking to him. We may not be able to do any of the fun stuff we used to love to do, due to his dropped pasterns... but he is thriving on his medication and still enjoys nice gentle walks and fun trick games to keep him stimulated. It’s enough for us. 

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And then I got to come home for Christmas, and of course the first thing I did was selfies with Rialto, haha. He’s already almost my height, and he’s grown so much just in a few months since I’ve been away! 

It’s safe to say he has absolutely stolen the hearts of everyone back home. Our farm owner adores him (and hugged me crying, thanking me for letting him come here... :’) ), my mom affectionately refers to him as her grandllama, annnd the one that made *me* cry... my little cousin told me that Rialto is his ‘new favorite’. Irish was his favorite before.

He had a special bond with Irish and always loved to play with him when he came to visit. Irish was always so good with him, following him around and keeping an eye on him. He’d sit in his pool while my cousin hosed him down and relished in the attention. Rialto loves him, too, and stood there quietly for a long time while my cousin pet him and I talked to his mom and the farm owner. It was a special moment. 

On Christmas Eve, I went with a good friend of mine to take Rialto and one of her 2 year old females for a nice walk along one of the trails near the farm. For Rialto, this meant loading into the back of a van with another llama and a Great Pyrenees dog. He handled it as he handles everything-- calmly and confidently. He enjoyed the adventure and I loved getting to spend the time with him and my friend! 

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After his first show, Rialto got to come home with us!  He’s staying in the upper pasture, with Kai and now, currently Silas as well.  Another testament to just how level-headed this kid is, his coming-home was... very unusual to me, to say the least.

We got delayed by heavy traffic coming back into our state, so unfortunately we didn’t make it home until about 10pm. It was totally dark out, but the moon was full and the sky was clear that night so everything was bathed in silvery light and looked beautiful. Still, I worried about Rialto adjusting to his new home in the dark, so I stayed with him for a while to make sure he was ok and waited for him to bed down for the night before going home.  Usually, a llama in a new environment, *especially* a baby leaving his home herd for the first time would understandably be a little disoriented. I was expecting a lot of stressed humming, pacing, or worse case-scenario, bolting.  Nope. Rialto was turned loose with Kai and took off *pronking* through the pasture. It was almost unnerving to watch him navigate the pasture so easily, as if he’d known it all his life. He knew where every dip in the ground was to avoid it, knew where the fenceline was and greeted Comet, Nimbus and Silas enthusiastically but not nervously. After a bit of stretching his legs, he settled right down to graze alongside Kai.  He never once seemed rattled. He has fit right in like he was made to be here from the very first moment.  Unfortunately, I had to leave to cross the state again the next day, as my classes had just begun and I had an exam to get to on time. I left my mom in charge of keeping a close eye on the herd and seeing to Rialto’s supplements and needs and keeping me updated.  He won everyone’s hearts over just as quickly as he did mine! 

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Not bad for his very first time out in the ring, eh? ;) 

Rialto kicked off his show career with a bang! He was shown and handled by his breeder, as I was an apprentice under one of the halter judges for this show. This meant that I could not be present at any time he was in the ring being judged, as to avoid any bias and keep things fair.  This was also his first introduction to Kai, who I brought along to be his companion and to help the transition to our farm go a little more smoothly. We figured him having a buddy would make everything less stressful, though in reality Rialto is so well-adjusted and laid-back that the entire thing didn’t seem to phase him at all. I was so proud of how well he handled everything! 

As he is still very young, this show he was only shown in fiber and conformation classes. No performance shows until he’s older, to avoid burnout.  His final results, at just 5.5 months old:  -Double Grand Champion Silky Male (Under both judges) -ILR Western Championship Grand Champion Silky Male (Under both judges) -Double first and ILR Western Champion First Place Juvenile Silky Male -Reserve Champion Single Fleece-On Placing him as the #1 Halter Juvenile Male for the registry in 2018!  I am so thankful to my mentor for trusting me enough to give me the opportunity to purchase this incredible young llama, and for showing him for me in this competition and getting him off to such a great start! I am so excited to continue his career and I truly hope to make her proud <3 

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Over the summer, I got to have one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and got the chance to make some incredible memories with loved ones!

We tried out a new venue for a less-formal summer performance show. The original plan was for my mom and I to go with just Kai, and I was going to bring my dog Wish along to camp with us. It’s always been one of my dreams to go to a llama show with my dogs, like everyone else does, and while this time it was just Wish while Kizzie stayed home, I still had so much fun bringing him along!  But then we drove up and were pulling into our camping spot and I spotted Rialto’s mom... and her fuzzy son popped his head up from behind her!!  My mentor kept it a secret and had everyone in on it, but she brought Rialto along as a surprise for me to visit with him and spend some time with him. I was so touched and over the moon with the whole weekend and getting to see him and have all these amazing experiences with him!  The venue was gorgeous. A rodeo ground with a scenic mountain backdrop and woods below with a shallow little river perfect for playing in running through it. During the day while it was hot, we’d all march down to the river with the llamas to play in the water, and in the evening we held the performance show!  I got to cross “swam in a river with llamas” off my bucket list. Rialto blew me away with how willing he was, just a little bit of encouragement and he was SWIMMING! He handled everything so well and it was seriously a dream come true to get to do all this with him.  This year, we’re going to take him to the ocean ;)  Wish had plenty of fun too! I taught him how to swim and he had a blast thinking he was herding the giant caravan of llamas down to the river. It was pretty fun to watch how proud of himself he was, haha. He’s pictured enjoying the river with Rialto’s full brother (born in 2016), Murano! 

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Some more pictures of Rialto, before he came home with me! <3 He already looks so much more grown up than these photos, so I’m enjoying looking back o his sweet little baby-ness. (Who am I kidding, he’s still a baby haha)