A   2003

Wayfaring Traveler Christmas

Well its time to sit back and reflect what’s happened over the year.   It’s my way of keeping a digital record of our antics and introspects of our menagerie’s lives.     For BJ & I we seem to remain healthy for our years.     I never thought the age thing would really make a difference.   How is it my parents never warned me of this, or was it, at that time, I was saying “Ya, Right”.

          Tap, tap, tap, tap…   What the heck is that?   Tap, tap, tap, tap!   I turn around and low-and-behold Titcomb Basin 8th Wayfarer is at the window.   TITCOMB!!! how did you get up here.   I get out of my chair and look out the window to the east looking out over the corrals and barn.   Oooooooh boy!!  The corral gate is open and the llamas and horses are out!!!   I rush outside to herd the menagerie back.

          Hey there folks!!!   How you’ all do’ in?   It’s me Titcomb.   How do you like the way I got Mike out of the house and away from the computer so I could let you know about the truth of what’s happenin around here.   Mike can get a bit phil… philos… philosof…  ah… that word when you think too much.

          I figured that I got to do the letter last year, with the help of Maggie, that I ask BJ if I could do it by myself this year.   She said I’d have to ask Mike.   When I asked him he said NO!   Well…he’s outside and I’m here now.   Guess whose in-charge now?

          The last time I wrote this I was just 6 months old.   Now I’ve been liven with my dad Bridger in our NE pasture.   He’s pretty cool.   The only thing I don’t like about being here is Breeze Boy, Turret, and Tenacious are pick-in on me and Granite Pk, and dad says that I’ve got to stand up for myself.   So when it comes to us eating corn at night I get all the leftovers and it’s pretty thin.

          Remember last year I said I was going to be packin’?   Well, I hate to admit it, but Maggie was right.   I did get to go into a bunch of parades this summer, but all I got to carry was the ranch sign.   Mike says that during this winter he’ll take me out for some practice sessions with the pack but he won’t put much of a load on me.   Speaking of packing…  Ha! Ha! Maggie had to go out on a trip to the Big Horns with Mike & BJ in the fall.   Mike said she did OK for the 1st 7-8 miles until the last mile when Maggie kept kushing.   Mike was a bit frustrated with her until the 2nd day when Groucho ate something bad and had to walk out with a lite load which means Maggie had to take more weight on than she wanted too.   Mike said she did OK again until that last mile.   Mike figured out that all he had to do was get Groucho in the lead and Maggie wouldn’t kush so much.   I guess that Maggie was a little mad at Groucho and did a bunch of spitting at him on the way back in the van.

          Hey!  A bunch of the moms had crias like me, except smaller.   On April 5th, 2003, Fox Fire 10th Wayfarer came out of Tymico 2nd Wayfarer.    Then, on May 3rd, 2003, Nichaja Wayfarer had this brown glob come out of her.   Mike & BJ got to name her Chinar Wing 11th Wayfarer.   She kind-of looks like my buddy Granite Pk and as she’s been growing up she looks kind-a-cute.   Then just 2 days later Jenny had a cria that kind-a looks like me only he has a white strip that is only on his left side of his neck.   Mike & BJ named him Klondike Lake 12th Wayfarer.   Finalllllly Lilly of the Valley (that’s Maggie’s and Sensay Su’s mom) had this light brown looking thing who we now call Stroud Peak 13th Wayfarer.   He was born on May 24th, 2003, and kind-a acts like a girl.   So I asked Mike why these names and he said that they try to name all the new crias after some places in the Wind River Mtn area.   That’s why my name is Titcomb, because they felt the most beautifullest spot they had ever been in was called Titcomb Basin.    Hey, that’s cooolllll.   So I asked Mike if I could go with them and see this place.   Then I get this,  “I’m too small yet to be making the trek.”    You just wait.   In 3 years I figure I’ll pass all my PLTA qualifications and I’ll make BJ & Mike take me there for being their BEST llama!!

Speakin of PLTA trials, from May 31st to June 10th, BJ & Mike took Radar and Bola DeNeava to two PLTA pack trials, one in Idaho and the other in Oregon.    Bola and Radar passed their 3 remaining qualifications easily and now join the ranks of Esparado and Zasu as being the only llamas in WY with such high qualifications.   When I grow up in 3 years I’m going to be that Master Packer!   You just wait and see.

In between those trials Radar & Bola got to go packing for real in an area BJ & Mike used to work in long before I was born.    They got to pack in 36 miles into Anderson Butte, Idaho area to see the bridge they built 25 years ago while BJ & Mike worked for the Forest Service.    Bola said that the trek up to the top of the butte wasn’t too hard but the trip down to the bridge had a bunch of trees across the trail.   He counted 63 of them and some were sooooo big he couldn’t jump over them.   I guess Mike was a bit disappointed when they got to the bridge.   The old bridge was gone and another, what Mike calls “pre-fab”, was in its place.   I guess BJ & Mike spent 2 weeks back in 1979 cutting and peeling logs, digging out, and then building braces the bridge sits on.  Mike calls it natural.     On the way back home Radar said the only complaint they had was the 2200 miles they had to travel in the week time period with those panting St. Bernard's on the bed of the van.

A few humans came to stay at the ranch during the summer, and there were some that took Bola & Spunky out to the Beartooth Wilderness.   They said they had it sooooo easy.   Bola said he didn’t have much weight to pack and they had nothing like he and Radar had to go through earlier this summer.

Then other set of humans took out Magnus & Mt Osborn to the Big Horns.   Magnus said that Osborn didn’t cooperate with the humans very well.   He kept kushing all the time.   I guess Mike went to pick them up and heard of their troubles.    He went back to where Osborn was, with the other human, and checked Osie out and thought he was acting very stubborn.   Mike couldn’t get Os to move at all, so Mike left Osborn out on the trail and carried the pack out on his shoulders.    The next day Mike and the dogs went back for Osborn.   They checked him over real good this time and found that Osborn had a torn patch of skin off his footpad.   I guess if that happened to me I wouldn’t be very cooperative either, but at least I’d tell Mike about it.

          I don’t remember if I told you, in the last Christmas letter, about the dry conditions out here.   Well, last year, Mike couldn’t get enough water on the hay field for it to grow, so he had to go out and buy hay for us.   He got these HUGE bales.   He would get the Ft Bd truck and back it up to the bales.   We would watch him & BJ take big hayforks and throw that stuff on the truck and then bring it into our area.   It tasted pretty good, but the only thing wrong with it is it’s got these things called cockleburs.  

          Even though it’s been very dry BJ & Mike have done well with the garden area.   A bunch of the produce they raise they sell at the Farmers Markets in Cody, Powell, & now Greybull.   They didn’t take me with them early on because it was too hot, 100° and more for about a month.   I guess a lot of those people that sell stuff decided Mike should be the new President and BJ the Secretary/Treasure of the thing.   Lately I don’t see Mike as much because he’s inside doin’ a lot of stuff for them.

          I asked BJ this fall if I could have Mike bring me into school and I could say HI to all the human kids.   She said that there are district school rules that won’t let animals in the school or on the grounds.   But hey, I’m not an animal, I’m a LLAMA!   She says it has something to do with human kids having allergic problems.   So Mike said that maybe this spring he’d take me to the retirement places and visit with older kids like him.

          Hey!   Remember me telling you about Thunder & Lightening?   I didn’t?    Well those two are getting biiiiiiigggggggggg.    I went to the vet with them last spring and Mike stopped by the feed store in Cody and weighed them on their scale.    Lightening weighed 2050 lbs and Thunder weighed 1625 lbs.   You don’t want them stepping on your llama toes.    They’ve been out practicing to pull things.   Mike has them pullin’ logs and big trees just for practice.   Mike even went out and bought something called a “fore-cart”.    He’s been buying all kinds of equipment he says he’ll repair during the winter months so the two big guys can pull it.    Mike laughs at me when I ask him if I can pull some things.    He keeps sayin’ wait until I get bigger then I can try pulling the llama cart like Maggie and Harpo do”.    It’s just like last year.   All those adult humans and llamas tellin’ me what I can and can’t do before I get to a certain age.     I’ll never be like that when I grow-up and have little guys like me running around!

          Ever see those big animals, hippopotamuses?   Mike let me in the house this fall and he was watchin’ a program on the TV with them on it.    I told him that we have our own hippos on the ranch.    He thought I was a bit llama-mad because he didn’t understand.    Since it was so hot this summer those horses were in the pond a lot and eating that tall grass stuff.   The only llama that goes into the pond on her own is Klondike’s mom Jenny.   She doesn’t go to far out into the pond but goes out to her belly and bends her knees.    The rest of us llamas don’t think that water is such a good idea.

 

Bang!!   Oh – oh, that was the back door to the house…      “TITCOMB!!!!   What are you doing in here, at the computer?”     Sorry folks I just got caught.      “How did you get in here?   You get outside right now!!  Dang LLAMAS!!!”  …Bang!!

          What’s this??    That Titcomb!!  You wrote the Christmas letter?    Dang!   He did a good job.   I walk back outside and see Titcomb kushed over by the corral gate with his neck and head stretched out on the ground looking a bit forlorn from my chastising.

          “Hey Titcomb!! …get up and come back inside with me!”     Oh – oh, I’mmmmm in troubllllle now.   Maybe I’ll just take my time getting up to him.    “Come on Titcomb!! …get up here!!”    Llamas sure can be slow when they think something bad is going to happen to them.   “Come on Titcomb get your tail up here!  You get back inside and sit back down at the computer.”     “But Mike, I really didn’t mean to do it…”    “Titcomb, You’ve got some of the same attitudes as Maggie.   I should never have taught you two how to type!   Llama kids!  Yah can’t keep em’ off the computer!   Now I want you to get back at the computer and finish the letter!”    “Ya mean I’m not in the llama house?”     “I didn’t say that.  I just think you did a very good job and you have the honor to finish what you started.”   Yeeppppieeeeeeeeee! 

 

          Mike says I got to tell you some bad news.   We lost 3 of us this year.   In the early part of May, during a school field trip to the ranch, Heathcliff (our big male bird) panicked and clawed his way over the bottom half of the barn's Dutch door.    A large gash occurred in his right leg.   The tendon was cut.    BJ & Mike  patched the wound as best they could.    Heathcliff hobbled around on his other leg.    On our 4th day of Mike & BJ rebandaging the wound they find his left leg splayed out to the side while he's lying down.   Turns out he has that leg broken also.    I guess an ostrich, without operable legs, (because they only have 2 while I got 4) will die a slow death.     Mike said he would have to put Heathcliff down.   Mike explained to me what it means when you die.    Now Heathcliff resides with his kind in ostrich heaven.

In October the oldest llama, George, didn’t get up.    He was 26yrs old.    Four years ago George was a llama that Mike & BJ rescued.    I guess George wasn’t doing his duty as a guard llama for sheep.   He wasn’t the funniest llama to be around.    No one dared get in his way.   If they did he would spit the most greenish spit with a lot of force.    I know this to be true because he got me at the feed trough many times.     Even though we all didn’t like him I'm sure he now has a spot being the top guard llama of heaven's sheep.

Then, in early November, all our llama hearts were broken with the passing of Fox Fire 10th Wayfarer.   He was the little guy that was born in April.    Mike & BJ nursed and gave drugs to get him better, but after 2 weeks he wasn’t able to stand and get around.   Mike was pretty shaken because Fox died in his arms.   It wasn’t until the end of November that Mike got news from the vet that Fox had gotten somethin’ call West Nile disease.    So I looked it up what this stuff is on the Internet, and found that little bitty mosquitoes carry it to certain animals.   Horses are supposed to get it but no one ever heard of a llama getting it.    Us llamas can only hope that Fox Fire meets up with the ranch’s best ever packer Chico, Turret’s mom Katarina, and Breeze Boy’s bother Dinwoody Glacier and tell a bunch of stories.

 

So this pretty much tells the good and bad news of the ranch.   I’d like to tell ya more of what goes on here but Mike, like Maggie, is clearing his throat.   I guess that means somethin’ like I’ve got to end this soon.   I hope that I’m not toooo deep in the llama house with him.     Say!   If you’ve got a chance and take a trip out west stop by the place we call home and see us.   I’ll be around unless I’m with Mike practicing packin’, at the parades, or at the Farmers Market.

 

From us guys (llamas) at the Wayfaring Traveler Llama Ranch

 

(Me) Titcomb     Maggie                Tymico                          Jenny                  Tenacious           Mandarin Chocolate

Dark Rain           Seneca                Turret                           Nichaja                Stroud Pk           Titapa (my Mom)

Zasu                    Mt. Osborn         Bridger (my Dad)       Radar                  Esparado            Klondike

Ethan                  Bola                     White Knight               Coco Man           Sinara                 Chico

Harpo                  Groucho              Black Knight               Spunky                Magnus               Howard K

Sensay-Su          Zipper                 Torrey Creek              Shasta                 Marble                 Chinar Wing

Breeze Boy        Granite Pk         Lilly of the Valley                 

 

From the BIG Bird:  Gertrude

From our barking Hippos:  Meiko and Koncho

From the mouse catcher Kalico and the ones that lay around all day Misha and Searcher

From the CONZO duo:  Thunder and Lightening, and that Cheyanne

Ohhhhhh yyyyyah, can’t forget those two human beings that keep us in llama feed & takes us to parades:  Mike and BJ Carlson

 

P. S.     From BJ and I, may you all have a happy and joyous Christmas & New Year.    Just one question, llamas or kids, do they shorten or extend life?   Visit our website www.tctwest.net/~wtr and see much more of the insanity at the ranch.   Bye!

 

Titcomb Basin 8th Wayfarer  •  Wayfaring Traveler Llama Ranch  •  PO Box 98, 1100 Lane 38  •  Burlington  WY  82411-0098  •  307-762-3536  •  Website:   http://www.tctwest.net/~wtr 

 •  E-mail:  wtr@tctwest.net

 

 

The ones who think they are in charge – BJ & Mike