Welcome Double J!

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce the newest member of the family...The Double J Ranch!  You can find us at dbljdotorg (soon) and dbljdotorg.blogspot.com (NOW!).

A Llama Emergency!

All of these boys, except for the one on my left are rescues!

Today I will be doing things a bit differently.  I have been madly working with my friend and mentor L'illette, who was my friend Bobra Goldsmith's right hand woman.  L'illette has been rescuing llamas for as long as I've known her; as a matter of fact, that is how we became friends.  But I'm not sure either of us ever saw this one coming folks.  My dear friend put it all in an e-mail to me this weekend, and here it is for you in its entirety:

If you’re not up-to-date on this, please check out the http://southeastllamarescue.org website, Gary Kaufman’s YouTube video,  and Jerry Finch (President/Founder of Habitat for Horses) blog report. Horrific in the most literal sense.

I’m also trying to keep my website at lillette.net updated with these links and any other info that comes along. And a Facebook page has been created: MLAS Llama Rescue. I urge you to cross-post my status update emails to you, the links above, any information you can. And if you have any press contacts, please get the word out to them, too. We need national coverage to get things going faster. Weather and road conditions in Montana mean we have to move these animals quickly.

TRANSPORT

The newly formed Montana Llama Rescue Coalition (MTLLRC) comprising representatives from llama breed and rescue organizations across the country, has been collecting money for transports and the ASPCA has promised a large donation, funds yet to be received.

We have one big load of 100 earmarked for points east, but need a big cattle hauler. Including below one of the latest emails on that topic for your reference. So if you know of any cattle haulers or anyone who might be able to take on some of these admittedly worrisome, starved, probably ill, and largely untrained llamas—yep, hoping for big miracles all around!—please spread the word.

Also have places for about 25 in Texas and a few so far in Ft. Collins area that can be dropped off en route to Texas. So far, I’ve found one livestock hauler out of Iowa who can take about 35-40 per trip, and 10-15 of the Texas-bound llamas can be dropped off en route.

RMLA AREA – WE NEED YOU! Only two farms so far have offered to help, and I really need more foster caretakers for here in CO. Ideally, of course, we’d like to get in at least one large group to some place where we can then get them initial care, sorting, etc. and on to farms in smaller groups. Our desperately needed miracles will hopefully include some sort of staging/temporary sanctuary area where a bunch could winter under shelter and with care and oversight. (This applies to all regions, not just RMLA.) FYI, these are mostly geldings and a few intact males at this point… hundreds of them still awaiting rescue, and dying as they wait.

Quick immediate and urgent needs lists (target is national, not just for my little regions):

·         Cattle hauler with double-decker style rig to transport 100 MT llamas to Northeast Llama Rescue (NELR) – see email included below.

·         Foster farms that can take in large numbers for immediate triage and distribution asap in smaller groups to other foster farms.

·         Other foster farms: even if you can take only a few, if enough folks will volunteer, that adds up to a lot more lives saved.

·         Donations of money via http://southeastllamarescue.org – all tax-deductible, initially for transport, with any remaining funds, such as if ASPCA comes through, going to veterinary care.

·         Please contact your camelid vets to ask if they’ll donate services or reduce costs for this rescue effort.

·         Knowledgeable llama folks who can be in MT to help load the llamas, or at the receiving ends to help unload, triage, distribute.

Please be aware that there will surely be initial costs to you angels who offer to take llamas. For my RMLA folks, I will set you up as a Southwest Llama Rescue, Inc. foster farm, which means your expenses may be tax deductible. Too, SWLR will continue to raise money to reimburse expenses incurred by foster farms. I’m sure the other rescue organizations are working along the same lines.

Again, if you haven’t been keeping up with the situation, please read Jerry Finch’s blog report from December 27. And know that the situation is much, much worse now. I don’t know how to tug any better at your heartstrings, but my own heart is breaking. Llamas are dying every day, and many may not even survive our rescue attempts. But some will! You can be part of this enormous endeavor to save as many llama lives as possible. I can only plead with you to help in whatever ways you can, whether it be a little or monumental. Nothing like this has ever happened in the rescue world, and certainly not to our beloved llamas. Please, please… please.
L’illetteL’illette Vasquez
SWLR/SELR Llama Rescues
LANA/RMLA/MTLLRC Llama Rescue Committees
L’illy Llamas at Rocky Mt. Llamas
7202 N 45^th Street
Longmont CO 80503-8844

I chose a Tuesday to post this because I cross post on Green Spot-On and I know that you my Rebels will surely get involved, if you can.  Put the word out people, and if you know me, you probably guessed the reason for my absence the last day or so, yes I have a few tricks up my sleeve!  I am hoping to get our local Environmental Action class involved with my rescue mission...ooops did I let that slip?  Is the RR headed to Montana?

They're not Maple leaves, but they'll do

Good morning GSO readers.  Yes, it is the wrong day for me, but I had a few hiccups this week, so I am posting on the wrong day because I wanted to share fall in Colorado with all of you.  I sure would love to see some pictures from the lake states... (hint, hint!)  But anyway here is my post from Wednesday at my daily blog at The Royal Ranch:

Well hello again Rebels!  I heard there was a nasty Twitter Bug, no I didn't say Jitter Bug...a Twitter Bug.  Someone got a hold of Twitter yesterday and made quite a mess of it from what I can gather.  As a matter of fact, when I did my research this morning to make sure it was safe to blog and all, I'm not even comfortable linking to any of the articles that I checked because there were so many pop-ups to, well, pop-up.  And that was the problem I guess; third parties that took you places that had all sorts of pop-ups and malware and nasty stuff.

So here I am being all proud of myself for just having gotten everything all connected.  You know, my new Royal Ranch Facebook page, and my new Twitter account, and of course this blog, and Tuesday is the day that I post for Green Spot-On...Wow, I'm pretty hooked up.  Yeah, hooked up to spread a virus like that like wild fire!  Really I laugh as I write this, you all know that right?

So, to make up for my absence, and god forbid any trouble I may have caused by my huge, massive exposure and connection  I will finally be posting my pics from our overnighter up to one of my favorite areas in the state; Lost Park Wilderness.  You know, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I do have quite a few pics here.  Ha!

Lost Park at sunset

Our walk in the "Park"

Dog walk at sunrise, aaahhh!!

You do see the antelope, right?

 

One of my favorite old barns in South Park

The next day we went to Tarryall Reservoir, what a beautiful dam!  

Pretty cool husband too!

 If you look closely, you can see swallow nests up top, and huge piles of bat guano on the ledges, very intriguing for a manure connoisseur!

There is no rock that they will not climb!

A little grody, but look at the size of this Pike head!

The first picture is from Monday night here at the house, we had a beautiful storm pass through, too bad it didn't bring much rain.  Please excuse the power line, but the view was worth it I figured!

Trying something new while keepin' it real

You know, I was so excited today with the response to my new Facebook page for The Royal Ranch.  It was really quite surprising; not only in the number of people, but who it was.  So since things were already on a little bit of a mixed up trend, and I;m getting ready for my big launch of Royal Rebels on Friday, I decided to do my post a little differently today.  I did part of post via video, so please bear with me and all of my nervous umm's, but I am new to this... so here goes:

And by the way, I was so excited about my idea to record my post I forgot one of the main reasons I was videoing.  That is to ask all of you to do the same.  Get your cameras and video recorders ready to record your goals for the Rebels and send them to me.  You can either send me a link to a YouTube video or e-mail me a picture to judy at royalranch dot net; this way we can all share in one anothers goals and successes.

Tweeting Twoubles

 My new twitter pic.  Actually I also used it on my book, Llucky Llama.

Okay, so I know I am about a decade or so behind a lot of bloggers and other regular folks, but I just don't really understand this whole tweeting thing.  But, I am bound and determined to get it.  I have been doing quite a bit of reading, and feel that it is the next step I should take to help the blog grow and to help spread the word about our Royal Rebels.

I got myself a Twitter account, and from there I was lost.  My e-mail is through my website, not through gmail or Yahoo, so no contacts there.  I followed a couple things, but Jonas Brothers kept showing up...No thanks.  But I did find this cute widget to make it nice and easy for all of you to find me!

So today's post is more of an open ended question to you, my dedicated readers at Royal Ranch, and to my weekly readers at Green Spot-On; how do you use Twitter?  Where do you go, who do you follow?  And most importantly, why?  What makes that person, attractive, so to speak?