In January of 1999 I was looking through Martha Stewart Living magazine and came across an ad in the back of the magazine about alpacas. David and I pulled the website address in the ad to see if there were any near us and there were, 5 miles away. We went to visit and when we came back we started planning on a visit to some midwestern states in February to learn more. On the last day of our trip we came across "Cody". Cody was a guardian llama who guarded his alpaca girls with a passion; he had personality, charm and charisma. Every time we tried to take a picture of him he stood sideways, ears back and glared at us daring us to take his picture. We couldn't get him out of our minds on the rest of our drive home. When we got back to Michigan we decided to looked for other places that had llamas.

In March of the same year we bought our first llamas, Ishi and Naiche. Mickey and Sunshine came the end of May, Tonka came in June. We finished the barn in August and in September AprilMarie and Luchella came from one farm, Ebony, Adriana and Rosie from another farm the same month. Our llama family was complete.

We have grown not only in how many llamas we now have at our place but also in our quest for knowledge and learning as much as we can about them through phone calls, farm visits, reading books and magazine articles, joining sites, attending clinics and conferences and showing them.

Note* - I'd like to take this time to thank Paula Barrett, Donna Moore, Dr. Molly Angel our vet, Dr. Norm Evans and Dr. David Anderson at Ohio State University as well as those individuals that have helped us along the way to better understand and do the best we can for our llamas.