An end to Honey Camp '09~

So Thursday was the last day of Honey Camp '09. And I just have to say, it was my very favorite day of all! My parents' neighbors have about a dozen llamas and they let us come for a visit to feed them. We planned to go around 10 that morning before it got too, too hot. But we were told that they'd probably already be in the middle of the pasture near the creek where it is shaded. Well, we woke up at 9:15 and rushed to get some long pants on and scarf down some breakfast. We didn't make it to bed before midnight at all during HC so...we were pretty tired by Thursday. But we were undeterred!

The owner wasn't home when we went and we had to walk about 100 yards or so through the pasture which had grass nearly to my knees to get to the creek where the llamas were! We were kinda freaked out wondering if we'd run into any snakes...either in the field or at the creek. But we made plenty of noise and had no problems. We were also wondering if it'd have been better if the owner had been there to walk down with us...since they would recognize him and they wouldn't know us at all. The llamas were a little skittish with us and at the beginning stayed on the other side of the water. We took lots of bread to feed them {the owner said they love bread}. But they wouldn't come over to us. So we threw a few pieces over the creek to woo them to us. As a fluke, I turned around and looked up to a bluff about 50 yards away and saw 4 more llamas. So I whispered to Kennedy that we could walk up there if she was really quiet. She was getting a little discouraged since the llamas weren't coming up to us yet.

So we walked up to this bluff by ourselves and man! There was one llama that I bet was around 6-7 feet tall with his head up! I held out a piece of bread to see if he'd come and holy cats! He came TROTTING over to us! I shoved Kennedy behind me incase he decided to kick us or spit on us or some other travesty he could impose! But alas, all 'ol boy wanted was for us to feed him! And feed him we did! I turned back and saw mom and the others making their way to us slowly. The llamas at the creek decided to follow them up to us! So Kennedy and I broke the ice so to speak and the feeding ensued!

It was so fun. They were still nervous around us but eventually, they got more friendly and at one point managed to surround us! Kinda scary but then again, not really. They were very docile and seemed okay with us being there. They ranged anywhere from about 4-7 feet tall. There was one baby and several smaller ones. You could also tell that two of them were like the "pack leaders" and that the others took their cues from these two. Very interesting. Here are a few pics of our morning with the llamas. I'm kinda sad...I couldn't get any great ones of the girls' faces while they were feeding them because the llamas got nervous if we walked or stood behind them. Makes total sense. But it made for several pics of the back of the girls' heads! Even still, we have some good photos.

I have several pics of the girls that I want to share from just being in the field after we ran out of bread. There was an old barn and beautiful tree and it made for some great photos. Those will be for another day. Honey Camp '09 was a huge success! Thanks mom! You're the best! We had a blast!