Wrong Again

Stress--and wicked bad thunderstorms (try hail in May)--always show true colors in man or beast. My second year's experience clipping my llamas (I watch, pray, provide moral support for the girls) was one for the books. The best and the worst of the girls shinned through. So let me begin with Tabbethia Haubold, groomer extraordinaire. I was her last stop at the end of jam-packed crazy week. With four girls to shear and counting down to returning to her Yaphank, NY home, Tabbethia is all business. So is my husband in business matters, so I totally understand her. Twice she called to remind me to have the girls in the stalls, haltered, and ready (her customer before me failed to comply). We were over-the-top-ready, for way too long a time for girls who are used to deciding their day.

Tabbethia is beautiful and incredibly strong, but that's the end of the story. She drove through golf-ball hailstorms and the second-worst thunderstorm, weather according to me. Tabbethia wants her best llama last and the most-stressed first. So we began with Et Cetera, who had a spit fight with Tess during the thunderstorm because Tess tried to mount her. I recited and sang the "Hail Mary"in more ways and versions than all the churches in Christendom combined, 93 minutes worth, so I was really prayered up for the clipping. All the girls benefited from my second-year calm, but Tess actually responded to the prayers, like Barnabas in The Mitford Books. I tried praying again today, and again, Tess responded in the same way. Perhaps it is just her love of attention, but I think differently. Et Cetera was a jewel, that Sophisticated Lady she truly is (if I could rename her, it would be Lady). After her, the rest of the clipping was an exercise in degrees of not as good.

Tess was second, and except for a half-dozen kicks that did not make their mark, she was a good girl. She is a kicker, much like a mare that I had years ago, Scout's Honor. Gentle, calm, but always quick to kick. We took Miss Cierra next, because I was saving the best for last. Cierra is pregnant, due June 10, and except for not liking her belly and sides, and her neck (I forgot to tell Tabbethia about a benign small growth), she was really very good. Excellent for a near-due date pregnancy. Almost no trouble.

Saving the best for last made me wrong again (Mickey's second favorite phrase). Good last year, she was your worst nightmare yesterday. Honestly, I thought we would not get her clipped. Pictures or a video would have been amazing but not humanly possible. The smallest of the four, she was as bad as my 16.3 Thoroughbred-Warmblood cross was once during a storm. Oddly, by the time Tabbethia arrived (spelled her name without looking this time), the sun was out. Hormones, pregnancy, call it what you want, as I see it, Rev was worse than any big, bad horse ever was for clipping.

Without a doubt, Rev was the surprise and a bad one at that. But there were other surprises as well. Tabbethia thinks I am the most non-aggressive person out there, and apparently so does my breeder, Carol Reigh. Funny, isn't it; if they only knew.... Guess Tabbethia based it on my telling her that discovering Rev's toenail issue ruined my Mother's Day (it truly did; I had trouble enjoying what was a wonderful day). Yet she realized that I was not worried, rather a really cool customer, helping her handle clipping Rev. Funny, but I really was non-plussed about her bad behavior. I kept telling Rev she was a good girl, with Tabbethia saying oh not she isn't or NOT! So I sweat the small stuff, but am a real trouper with hard things. I told Tabbethia that I have always known who I am, including my oddities, and she seemed to respect that.

I learned that I will never clip the girls. Ever. She has a job for life, and no amount of money would ever make me change my mind. Frankly, clipping a bad horse is much easier than a bad llama. The chute that Carol sold me is worth a Sumo wrestler's weight in gold. If ever a piece of equipment was tested and passed with five-star general status, it would be Carol's chute. So if you have camelids and you do not have her chute, invest in your herd's future and buy one. After working so brutally hard on the farm yesterday, to go to a go-round with the girls was just another day in the life of a farm girl.

You can discover more about Tabbethia Haubold's business, check out her website, Long Island Livestock Company. She conducts an educational program about llamas, sponsors camelid fiber shows, judges in the show ring, spins her llama fiber and offers yarn products for sale. And we know she is one great shearer; when she had to, she bodily lifted Rev, getting her to stand when the belly harness just would not do the job. And after all that, Tabbethia had a three-hour drive home. God bless her!

Gave you her coordinates, just in case you are a geocaching llama lover like me.

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The Farm
Llamas
Tabbethia Haubold
LILivestockCo
Carol Reigh
Buck Hollow Llamas

Changing Connections

Meet "The Girls." They are my passion, my avocation, and my future as I change connections and begin a new learning curve and a new blog, Learning Llamas. My odyssey toward llamas seems, as I reflect, a natural extension of having ridden and shown horses competitively for 24 years. While I do not believe that life should be lived age-or-gender specific (I have always worked against the norm), a time comes when balance, judgment, and timing cannot be the sole responsibility of a great packer, a horse that babysits the rider over 4' fences and wide oxers. When my last great equine babysitter died, I felt a void beyond description, and subsequently had several opportunities to be gifted with great bloodlines that did not succeed on the track. That inner voice that speaks to me heeded my husband's concerns that I should seek a different venture.

Several years passed, consoled with loving canine and feline friends, but an empty (and brand new) large barn sat atop a hill, beckoning. Then, two years ago, we wandered to the northern reaches of Pennsylvania to a fiber festival. My husband thought he was going to a fiber optics show, but destiny led us to the Harford Fiber Festival. That was the beginning of my journey toward learning llamas, but I did not know it at the time. Another year passed, and then in spring we received an invitation to an Open Barn at the Buck Hollow Llama Farm. (As a vendor at the fiber festival, Carol had access to people who bid on the silent auctions, which is how she found us). We went, and took my best friend, Jennifer Brinson, with us--to buy fiber. Several hours later, we had fallen irretrievably in love with Tess. She stole our hearts, and as we left Carol Reigh's farm that day, I knew that a piece of my heart was left behind. Two weeks later, my husband bought Tess Allenby for me. After all, she wasn't a horse, I couldn't ride her, and ergo I would have a safe occupant in the beckoning barn. Everyone knows that llamas are herd creatures, so the search for the companion llama began, and late summer we purchased Rev, who was Tess's best friend since they grew up together.

God must have been watching and guiding us on our llama adventure, for we were truly blessed to find Carol Reigh and her llamas. Although we had a barn, we needed to decide actually to use it (versus building a new one, a decision that we belabored perhaps too long, but then, my husband makes all the decisions and he really is always right, so I defer to his judgment). Then came fencing, which kind and contractor (we followed Carol's recommendation and love the final product), and which pastures we should use to work from the barn. We added a roof extension for the girls to kush down under, and by Thanksgiving, the girls were ready to arrive. From April to November, Carol tended to our girls, taking care of them, teaching me when I visited them, helping me with design and layout and a host of decisions. She even shopped for me, outfitting the girls in style. I arrived home from school the day before Thanksgiving, and Carol and the girls were waiting, with a loaner llama who would winter with the girls as their aunt. Well, suffice it to say that for Christmas, my husband bought Miss Cierra, who has taught the girls well and been the greatest aunt of all, and a great guard llama with The Canadian bloodline as part of her gene pool. When Carol said that she would always provide service after the sale, she was true to her word. I have often called or emailed her with questions, and she has always been kind, caring, and generous with her time and knowledge. She is truly, like her llamas, one of a kind.
Buck Hollow Llamas, Inc.
Carol Reigh
Llamas
Turbo Tagger