llama

63:365

We visited Aunt Vickie's Llama Farm today, which consists of one awesome lady with a quaint cabin and nine llamas all on nine acres of gorgeous Colorado mountain.

Llamas, it turns out, are pretty incredible animals. Huge but gentle. Curious and playful. Useful and sweet. I fell in love with "the girls," as Vickie lovingly calls them. (We saw the males but didn't make it into their pen. No reason other than it was cold and blustery and snowing, and we got our llama fill in the girls' pen.)

Vickie brought out old margarine tubs with grain, and we scooped our hands full and fed the llamas. Their mouths were so soft and I just couldn't help laughing with delight. It was a great experience.

On the way there, we saw a cow wandering the road (she had gotten loose from somewhere and was ambling down a two-lane highway), a group of big horn sheep, and a small coyote. Yesterday we saw young deer. And of course we passed the goat farm full of miniature goats near my friend's house multiple times. The llamas were the icing on the animal cake (animal cookies?) this weekend.

Home now, and happy to be here with my adorable little family. I walked up to a front door decorated with a Welcome Home sign made by my little girl, and later found another, smaller Welcome Home post-it on my pillow. I have shared my treasures with husband and realized once again how lucky I am to have a guy who supports all my crazy boondoggles.

Tomorrow is the start of my busy, shortened week full of evening meetings and appointments and the usual daily chaos. I'm rested and happy and ready. I predict this feeling will last approximately 24 to 36 hours, but a girl can hope for longer.

In the meantime, here's a little llama entertainment:

What happens if you stand between two llamas?
You get llamanated!

What's a llama's favorite movie?
Llamadeus!

What do you call a very fast llama?
A llamagini!

Okay. I'm done.