Filed under: school visits | Tags: fun, IL, kindergarten, kisses, llama visits, Washington
We had the most fun a couple of weeks ago and took a small white llama, White Knight, and a black suri alpaca, Midnight Idol, to visit several kindergarten groups in Washington, IL. We did the usual of talking about llamas and what they do, like living in families and carrying back packs, and stuff. I’m not sure how much the kids really get out of that, but we try to make it really interactive with lots of fun questions. One thing I always do is tell the kids that llamas hum to each other to talk, and then I have them ‘hum’ thank yous and good byes when we are done. I also try to get kisses from at least one of the animals — grosses out some of the kids, but that is part of the fun of it! We did have one thing happen that has NEVER happened before: the alpaca decided that he needed to pee — on the rug in the room! At least he didn’t start dropping droppings! I tried taking him outside while Cherity, who works with me, kept on talking, but of course he was too stressed at that point to do anything. It was wild; I guess enough of the kids had done something on the rug to get him started. It would be nice if we could get them to ‘go’ before we start, or at least before they get out of the trailer, but since we’d never had this problem before, I guess I was getting a bit lax. And it bit me in the proverbial butt! If I can I will attach pictures — the kids are so cute, and this llama and alpaca are the perfect size for them. And in this group only a few held their noses and said the llama and alpaca smelled — better than usual.
Filed under: Ranch Visits | Tags: llama interaction, nursing home visits, Ranch Visits, school visits, special needs
We’ve had several ’special’ groups visit the ranch in the past few weeks, and I was wondering just how much they really get from their visits. You can see that some of them are learning about and interacting with the llamas, but often times they just seem ‘there’ and not involved in what we are doing. I’m wondering if anyone has ideas on ways we can make things more interactive for special needs folks — not just kids, but adults, too. We do the nursing home and school routine, but when they come here, I would like it to be more fun, in a way. If you have ideas, I would love to hear them!
Filed under: weather issues | Tags: alpaca, elections, hot mama, llama, voting
This is the first of what I hope to be many comments, both from me and from others. As long as you KEEP IT CLEAN you can pretty much comment on what you want. With the number of blogs out there, I may be the only one saying anything, but that simply means I have an intelligent audience — or not.
To start out with, I am the Hot Mama Llama — I will get my logo/’picture’ up as soon as I can so you can see what I mean by ‘Hot Mama.’ It/she really is too cool. I will be posting pictures of my ‘nanner-eared’ and ’spear-eared’ kids, as well as my other kids, if they will stand still long enough. I also plan to link to other web sites that I find interesting — send me something that you think is interesting and I’ll look at it.
Today was TOO COLD here! I think someone up there thought central Illinois should be part of northern Minnesota. My poor bare-naked little alpacas were shivering all day. I’m ready for a reasonable start to summer, thank you very much. Yes, I know we will want some of this back in the middle of August, but that’s a long ways away.
By the way, one more thing. I do wish that llama and alpaca elections had a bit more of what the Democratic party is going through. At least people are talking about and voting in the national election. I wonder if other livestock associations have this same problem — that not enough people vote to even make a quorum, so no decisions are made. And the non-voters are the first to complain that not enough is done, too. But I wonder if that really is true. Any thoughts, those out there who don’t vote, either in local, regional, national, association, or other elections? Do you complain or do you figure that since you didn’t vote [and why didn't you vote?] you don’t have a say in what happens.
Enough for now. This probably isn’t terribly interesting right now, but I have some reading to do and I also need to learn how to make friendship bracelets. Like all good new salespersons, I expect to sell to/hear from my family . . . . .
Have a good one!
