OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED: The Farm Additions

OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED

In the beginning, JD adamantly only wanted two children. I thought that four would be perfect. Once we caught God's vision of putting orphans into families, our plan was multiplied by God. We are currently blessed with 12 children; five biological, six adopted and one more waiting in Ethiopia. Our first adoption was from the U.S., the next three were from Liberia, West Africa, and our last two were from Ethiopia. We are supporting our 12th child in Ethiopia after her adoption could not pass court.

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

The Farm Additions

Our new farm additions are a huarizo and a llama. If you don't know what a huarizo is, don't feel badly as we didn't either - it is half llama and half alpaca. It appears more as a llama, but makes it a smaller, more manageable size. We made the trip two hours away, into the mountains to a petting zoo. They actually were taken from another zoo and bought by this zoo, just to resell. Anyway, I only intended on coming home with the white huarizo, that I named Glacier. While there, however, JD became concerned that she wouldn't do well without one of her friends, so he impulse purchased a full size two year old llama that was the friendliest of the llama bunch.

The group text we always have going with our big kids announced JD choosing a llama, followed by several big kids responding with things like, "right, don't believe that". It took some convincing for them to not "blame" me for the extra llama.

I told JD he could name his llama as long as he stuck with a mountain theme. He decided on Butte. A butte for those that don't know is an isolated mountain with steep sides and a flat top; there is a mountain in Montana named Square Butte. Butte is pronounced like Beauty without the Y. JD is finding it humorous due to the spelling. She doesn't mind and may wish to go by "Brown Butte."

They have both been housed with a white male llama for some time, so either or neither may be bred. Hopefully it won't be in the dead of next winter as they have a 11 month gestation. The male llama seemed nice enough until we loaded two of his three ladies in our horse trailer, and then he proceeded to spit at us through the trailer slats. He had pretty good aim and hit JD once from ten feet away.

The llama is much more outgoing that the "lapaca" at this point, but I did have Glacier eating out of my hand tonight. They just need some stability and love, and a hair-dresser, but that will have to wait.