We have a name!

Our newest cria, the carmel colored one pictured in the previous post, shall be named Darby O'Missy but we'll call her Darby.

I'm still having to go to the ranch daily to give Bliss an antibiotic shot. We got the test results back yesterday and it showed she had a form of e-coli in her bladder causing an infection. So now she's on PenG (a form of Penicillian) and NuFlor. I sure hope this cures her. I feel so bad that she's having to get shots twice a day for the PenG. My fear is she's going to associate bad things with being haltered. I'm just going to have to work extra hard after this is done to keep haltering her and find something that she likes as a treat. She has eaten grain from my hand once so my plan is to give her some of that at the end of each round this week.

Newest, and last for the season, Cria

Here she is! We still haven't settled on a name.


She's standing next to mom in this photo. You can see she's similar in coloring to mom. It'll be interesting to see how her coloring flushes out as she gets older.

I need to buy a lottery ticket!

It's ANOTHER girl!!! That makes 4 in a row.

I'll head down there later today. First I have to collect the kids at the end of school, drop them at their respective activities and then I can head down there. Ethan will come with me so I'll have him take pictures.

Hmmmm.... need a name that starts with "D". Any suggestions?

Speaking of quick

Just after I posted my last entry, my cell phone rang. It was Wayne - "You have another cria on the way." The torture of having animals 40 minutes away!

That was quick

This morning I drove down to Hollister to check on my girls. Actually, I had to stop along the way at Costco to fill up the gas tank and buy a cat tree. Yesterday we were at this same store and the kids insisted we get our cats a tree. At $50, it was a steal but we didn't have room in the car for it so I told the kids I'd get it today. Ethan'll be thrilled - he made sure to remind me this morning of my promise to get it.

While at the ranch, I had 3 tasks to accomplish:
1. give Bliss her Naxcel shot for a bladder infection
2. weigh Ciara
3. catch Ciara visiting the poop pile to make sure all the plumbing works properly

I arrived at the ranch around 10:30am. I figured I'd be there a few hours trying to accomplish the third of my tasks. First, I cleaned up the pen. It gave me a chance to watch the girls. Kay (due sometime in the next few days or months) was laying down and shifting from side to side. Bliss is still going to the poop piles and peeing teaspoons at a time. Murphy is a phenomenal mom - she stands so well for Ciara when she wants to nurse, even moving a leg out of the way if it's needed. Ciara is growing like she should be. She was 19 pounds at birth and was a little over 21 pounds today at 5 days old. Perfect weight gain!

I've been giving Bliss her Naxcel shots (4 so far). This is a first for me - giving shots. Saturday we (Wayne and I) attempted to have me give the shot on my own (i.e. without him holding her). It didn't work - I wasn't confident enough. Today though, I caught her, haltered her, tented the skin, and gave the shot. When I was done, I looked at Wayne and said "Oh! I guess I did that all by myself, huh? Cool!"

A few minutes later, Ciara went to the poop pile and did her business. Steady flow of urine and a nice mass of feces. All's well on that front! Guess I'm done for the day! 11:30 and I'm outta there.

Look who showed up!

Thursday morning I got a call from Wayne to tell me I have a cria on the ground. Yippee!! But wait, it's not October. I wasn't expecting any deliveries until October. Hmmm.... I must have "misfiled" the information the breeder gave me. I'll bet she said she bred in October (which means deliveries in September) but I misheard it as they'd deliver in October. Oops. So while I was at the ranch checking out our new cria, I checked the other mom-to-be and sure enough she's bagged up. That means she'll be delivering soon. Or not - it could be a few weeks from now too. Darn alpacas refuse to read the instruction manual.

Oh - I guess you want to know whether the cria is a girl or a boy? Well, our first two crias were girls so we fully expected to have a crop of boys this year. Not so. It's another girl! We've named her Ciara - pronounced KEE-ra. It's Gaelic for "dark one" referring to coloring as in dark hair and eyes. The name definitely fits her!

Annual Shearing Day

The girls at their new digs. This is their version of "Don't Take My Picture!" Kay on left, Bliss in center, Murphy on right.


Since Bliss wouldn't cooperate and show us her lovely coloring, we had Dana catch and hold her for us. The 'funny' lighting is because they're standing in between the sun and the shadow of a tree. Click on the pic for a larger version.

Shearing day is a bit of a double-edged sword: it's fun but it's hard work. At Foothill Alpacas where our animals are agisted, we use a table for shearing. To shear an animal, you need:

1 shearer
1 green guy (so called because he holds the head and gets covered in green slime when the 'pacas get upset)
1 toe nail clipper who also helps get the animal onto the table
2 fiber collectors - one for prime and another for neck/leg
2 people to catch - one of those two also blows out the animal
and at least 2 extra people.

The shearer is the boss. Everyone else is there to help him/her in any way they can. The fiber collectors also put the names/dates on the bags and, if desired, pull the fiber sample that gets shipped off for micron testing. The catch people also blow out the animal's fleece (while it's still on the animal) to get rid of any hay bits and dirt. While this does disturb the lock structure, if you're shipping the fleece straight off to processing, it doesn't matter. In fact, the shearer will appreciate it because shearing with all that excess dirt dulls the blades really fast.

The two extra people are in case someone gets hurt. We had 2 shearing days at Foothill this year and had injuries on the first one. That left us a bit short-handed so we made sure we had enough help on the second day.

The FUN part of shearing day is gawking at the 'pacas after their shorn. They always look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book! My favorite books are Dr. Seuss books!

Here's the "after":

All together now

As of this afternoon, all of my alpacas are at home in one place. For the last 18 months, I've had my girls at one ranch and my boys at another. In summer 2006, I bought a girl from a local ranch. A few months later, the other girl I owned was returning from the breeders. My original intent was to bring her to where our boys are but well, we had some concerns about the veterinary care available at that ranch.

The clinic has several vets - the head vet is very good at camelid care as are two others. But there was one in particular we weren't happy with. And it seemed she was the one they always sent over. In her defense, she was great horse vet. And in the clinic's defense, the vet who used to always work with us, and who we loved, was out on an extended maternity leave.

At the other ranch, where I had the newly purchased girl, their servicing vet has several decades of camelid experience and was even a consultant in South America during the imports. He knows his stuff. So I ask, with whom would you choose to house a pregnant maiden?

Now, some might say that publicly posting that one doesn't care for a vet is bad form. I disagree. It's important for an alpaca owner to have an available camelid vet. I recognize some people aren't so fortunate as to have a choice between vets and must work with whomever is available. But it's also very important to be comfortable and confident in that vet's abilities. I had a choice between two vets for my alpaca care so I made one. While I love my alpacas nearly as much as I do my pets, this is a business. Vets provide a service to my business.

Fast forward to today: the pregnant maiden delivered a beautiful rose grey girl nearly a year ago. The new mom is yet again a mom-to-be with proven mothering instincts. And Murphy, the girl I bought is also expecting. The vet in question has moved to a practice in another state and the vet we used to work with is back from maternity leave. Travelling between two ranches is hard (and expensive given the cost of gas these days). So it's time to bring everyone together.

Tomorrow is one of the shearing days. All the girls get haircuts while the boys have to wait until Saturday for theirs. I love shearing day. It's hard work. But those bags of fiber are to die for!

Saying Goodbye is a part of life

One of my favorite alpaca females was delivered to her new home recently. Aurora was owned by Foothill Llama and Alpacas and now lives in Idaho. You can see her in my March 2004 post on ranch chores. She was one of my favorites because she epitomized the "huggable investment" alpacas are touted to be. I don't know who coined that phrase because if you've spent any time with these beautiful animals you know that they really don't like to be hugged. Really, they don't even like to be touched. But once in a while, you find one who takes a liking to people. Aurora always greeted people in the pen. The first thing she would do is inspect your feet. Then she would follow you around like a puppy dog soliciting pets and back scratches. If the herd "witch" tried to harrass you, Aurora would put herself in the middle, and even one time turned to spit at the grump as if to say "hey, mind your manners around my friend".

Now even though Aurora liked people, there was a caveat to that: she had to not be pregnant. When she was pregnant, she was your typical "don't bother me, human" alpaca. I remember being pregnant and I can't say I blame her.

As an alpaca rancher, saying goodbye is part of the business. Sometimes it's hard because the animal sold is such a lovable animal. Aurora's new owner is no doubt enjoying her. We wish them both well. I am happy to say though, that we at Foothill Ranch already have a candidate stepping up fill Aurora's shoes: Jamie.

North Fork renovation work

Right after DS's baseball game on Saturday, we drove up to North Fork to do some more work on renovating the house. It was chilly when we arrived so we set about starting a fire in the wood stove. Our first discovery was a long-dead bird in the cavity of the stove. As I shoveled that out, I then discovered the level of ash was, oh, about 6 inches deep. When was the last time this stove was cleaned out? 1898? Sheesh. Back in June when we were cleaning up the property, we wisely saved any tools we came across. The all-metal axe came in handy as Ken chipped away from a log to create some kindling. It was awfully hard on the hands without any handle padding. (I've added "axe" to the list for next trip.) In about half an hour, we had a roaring fire going. The amount of wood we went through that night and the next morning was a bit surprising. Even though we have what we thought was a good size wood pile, it's clear we're going to have to cut a lot more for future trips. (Adding chainsaw to the list too.)

Another discovery is the winter temperature. Boy oh boy does it get cold at night INSIDE the house. And there isn't even any snow yet! I kept waking up because my nose was freezing. I had already planned on adding whole house cooling to the renovation but after this past weekend, we'll be sure to be looking into heating solutions as well. The wood stove needs to be replaced anyway (not up to code).

The last time we were up there working, the kids discovered a scorpion. I didn't even know there were scorpions up there! I figured it was too high of an elevation. According to another rancher up in the area, there are small and large varieties in the area. Lovely.

Renovation work is going along slowly but surely. We've removed all of the wallpaper the downstairs rooms except the bedroom we slept in. On our next trip, we can tackle that and be ready for texturing the walls downstairs. The current job is getting a contractor to replace every door in the house. All of the interior doors except for one have a hole(sometimes holes) in them. The front door has been busted in one time too many so the jam is nearly useless. The back door is exposed to the weather and looks it. Nearly all of the surface has flaked away. The back French doors were destroyed by the previous owner's dog. I would have like to repair those because they're really nice doors but a woodworker says they're too damaged. And the master bedroom door is missing. Gone. It wasn't even among the junk we disposed of this summer. I'm hoping we can get this work done before Christmas.

Major Update

Life has been quite demanding these past 6+ months. Here's a quick synopsis:

North Fork House and Land
Right around my last post we started having trouble with the tenants/former owners of the North Fork house. They stopped paying rent and by mid-March, I had to start eviction proceedings. We finally got possession of the house in late May. But oh my, what a mess! Nine trips to the dump later (the trailer we used was 10' by 5' by 6' and we piled it higher than the 6' walls) and we have a house we can start remodeling. Anyone know of a way to clean 30 years of smoker's soot from a pine tongue-in-grove 21 foot high vaulted ceiling?

On the herd front...
We were expecting two crias this summer - one from our own female Melody, and one from a female we don't own but chose the stud for breeding. Melody graced us with a beautiful white female cria on June 26th. We named her Aria to start us off with our alphabetical naming tradition. Sadly, Aria only lived 28 days. The necropsy showed her intestines were just not working and any hay she ingested sat in C1 (the first stomach) fermenting to the point it released toxins which shut her system down. So $2908.00 later we are back to square one. The second female, Halley, slipped her pregnancy at some point because a blood test taken a month before her due date came back negative (she's now months beyond her due date). The stud we chose to use with Halley died about 2 weeks ago so we can't try that match again.

After all that's happened this summer, if I was in this business for breeding, I'd have thrown in the towel. As much as I love the animals, this was just a heartbreaking summer. Thankfully, I also love alpaca fiber and thoroughly enjoy spinning, weaving, and felting. Running a fiber ranch of males is looking more and more appealing. But we're not quitters, so it's off to Derwydd Alpacas to breed Melody and get ready for Round 2 next summer.

Fiber Arts Competitions
My daughter and I both entered things in competitions the last few months and Dana even competed on several Sheep to Shawl teams.

The first judged event was in April at Monterey Pronk. My woven suri scarf won a first place! Every yarn I entered also got a ribbon. Dana entered a knitted pencil holder necklace and got first place. Hers was the only entry in the kids category and she said she wishes more kids would enter so it would feel like a real win. Her lace weight suri yarn competed with the adults and she got second, only because she didn't set the twist. (DH chided me for not doing it for her.) The judge was very impressed that a 10 year old spun such fine yarn.

The second competition was the Alameda County Fair. The same woven suri scarf got third - and when I saw what got first and second, I understood why. First and second were very complicated weaves that must have been woven on 16+ heddle looms. They were very pretty and very well done. Dana's pencil holder necklace got second - we never did find first place (They display entries by themes, not by category.) Her yarn got third - again competing against adults. Pretty awesome!

The Alameda County Fair is where one of the sheep to shawl competitions Dana participated in was held. She was on a kid's team against four adult teams. They placed third!! Dana will get to keep the shawl they made - for now all of the shawls are making the rounds of the guilds.

Dixon Lambtown (July 30th) was Dana's second sheep to shawl competition this summer. The same kids from Alameda participated along with two adult teams. This time they came in second!! The organizers of this event solicit prize donations from the vendors. All of the kids were awed with the prize table and took home oodles of goodies.

Puss 'N Boots

And Boots makes THREE!



Technically he's not part of Humming Hearts Ranch. Boots belongs to our daughter. She fell in love with him from the day she first met him. He's an incredibly friendly (but not too friendly - the tail stays down) and curious alpaca. He's first to the fence when visitors arrive and loves attention. In fact, he was recently photographed for an article in the local newspaper. The Hollister Freelance came to Foothill Llama and Alpaca Ranch (where we agist) to do a story on the business of alpacas. Boots was so friendly that he was featured on the front page of the Community section where the article was published.

The ranch who owned Boots gave us his last fleece. DD (dear daughter) has been cleaning it and spinning it. So have I. It's really incredible. So soft and shiny!!! Suri fiber really "shines" best when it's combed and spun worsted. I only have a drum carder and haven't learned worsted spinning really so I doubt I'm doing this lovely fiber justice. Nonetheless, it's making some really nice fine gauge yarn. I've kept most of the chocolate fibers separate so far but I'm not worrying about the bits that do make it through. It just makes for a more interesting yarn.

Meet Melody

She's the new member of our herd. We bought her a few months ago. She's a 2 year old pregnant female who should deliver in mid June. On the other hand, as a maiden she might not deliver until July or maybe even August. As you can see, she's a tuxedo. We bred her to a true black male. Should make for a dreamy cria! Then again, is there any other kind? :-)

"I tried to tell you!",

said the pregnant female alpaca.

Today was more breeding and testing for pregnancy. The very first female on the list was Halle, a rose grey female who throws very nice babies when paired with Regal, another rose grey. Both alpacas are mature, experienced animals. Halle has had several crias and is a phenomenal mom. Regal is a stud the Auslands have used for quite a few years. Actually, he was retired until I came along. Because Halle is not for sale, I requested this mating because their crias are so nice. They were bred earlier and now it was time to behavior test her.

So we caught Halle, haltered her up and Wayne walked her out to take her to the breeding pen. Halle's first step outside her paddock triggered a spitting right at the back of Wayne's head. "What did you do that for?" Wayne rhetorically asked Halle. Being more cautious now, he made sure she walked next to him so he'd not be in the line of fire should anything else bother her. Well, something was bothering her because she spit again. And again. And again. She spit the entire walk back to the breeding pen. Why? She *knew* where she was going and was trying to tell us "I'm pregnant." She didn't feel the need to wait until in a pen with a male and spit him off. Did the dumb humans catch on? I didn't. But I'll be smarter next time, you can bet!

No 'paca time this week...

It's too hot. Today I was going to work with our boy, Autie, on obstacle training. If there was time, I was also going to try out the youngsters, Arnold and Anthony. In late October, we're going to AlpacaFest West, a show in Central California that has performance competition. Alas, we'll have to work another day. Summer has finally decided to show up here in the Bay Area. The last few weeks, we've been having highs mostly in the 90s with a few days over 100. With temperatures like that, it's best not to work with the alpacas. I'm kinda bummed - it's been a week since I've been out to the ranch and was looking forward to some 'paca time. Sometimes ya gotta let Mother Nature make the decisions.

Property update...

We did close escrow on the property in North Fork. Woo Hoo!!! At some point in the future, Humming Hearts Ranch will reside within 11.3 acres just off Road 221. Here is a BEFORE picture of the house.



We plan on doing some serious changes to the house before we move in ourselves. To the exterior for example, the roof will be replaced. The house will be painted white with green trim. We'll add a proper porch to the entire front that you see in the picture. You can't really see the front door because it is directly behind the tree. For now, the house is being rented out to a very nice local family.

Anyone want to come and help put in fencing? :-)

Kimberly

Vaccinations

Bad News: West Nile Virus is a very real threat to alpacas.
Good news: Camelids can be protected by a series of vaccinations.

Ohio State University and Oregon State University have both done extensive studies with an equine WNV vaccination and found it to be effective in camelids. Their studies showed a series of three shots will provide protection against WNV infected mosquitoes. The study results can be read here: http://www.icinfo.org/Pages/wnvreview.html

Something worth noting: Several WNV vaccination serums are on the market. If your animals are vaccinated using one serum, all booster shots must be given using that same one. If for some reason you have to switch to a different vaccination serum, all animals must start from ground zero and begin inoculations all over. Make careful notes in your vaccination documentation which vaccination you or your vet is using.

Today we spent time giving the young boys and the young girls their second WNV vaccination. It's days like today when you really appreciate a well designed ranch. The girls and boys are in the front of the ranch. The boys are at the end. The girls are next to the boys but there's a catch pen in between the two with gates from both paddocks leading into the catch pen. We had to first round up the boys into the catch pen. Easy. Just open their gate and they run right in. Could it be that they know they'll be closer to the girls? :-) Close the catch pen gate. Next, we caught a boy, haltered him, I held him while Wayne vaccinated him, and finally I released him back into his own paddock. Same routine for the girls.

Sometimes they are less eager to go into the catch pen so I use a long PVC pole (probably 12 feet long) held at waist height to guide them where I want them to go. We have also on occasion used a long flat woven rope with one person holding each end. I prefer the pole because I can do it myself. Alpacas rarely challenge barriers (they'd rather flee to an open space like through an open gate), so they never come in contact with the pole or rope.

Halters aren't always necessary for these vaccinations. We used them today because most everyone was a bit on the feisty side. It is simply safer for them if they are haltered and tied up even though you have one person holding the animal while the other innoculates. For the truly feisty ones, we can walk them back to the barn and use the chute. It contains them very well. Thankfully, we didn't need to do that for anyone today.

Kimberly

Weaving: making something from nothing

A few weeks ago I drove to Southern California to pick up a LeClerc floor loom I bought through eBay. Thankfully, we have friends who live in Porterville, a town about halfway between where we live and where the loom was located. Our friends kindly offered to be a waypoint for me and the kids on this excursion. Here's my new treasure! I've even got a bit of my own weaving showing on it.



Here's a close-up of the weaving. I unrolled it off the front beam so that you could see more of it than is pictured above.



Now, lest you think I've been rather industrious since the arrival of the loom, let me say that the loom came warped with some-once-white cotton string. The previous owner had started a project but never finished it. I rolled the old project onto the front beam and started my own project using some of my icky* handwoven yarn. For yarn I considered garbage, it worked up quite nicely. Maybe if I full it (felt the fibers with soap and gentle agitation) the remaining paint flecks will come out and it'll make a nice placemat.

*"icky" because I dyed a wool roving using dyes that mostly sat on top of the fiber. It was an experiment gone bad. When I spun the roving, I got tons of paint flakes all over me. But could I throw away the yarn or roving? Of course not. Now I'm glad I didn't.

Location Update
As you know, we don't have a ranch of our own yet. We have been taking time this year to scout out various locations. To make a long story short (and I'll elaborate on it in a later post), we're in escrow on a nice 11 acre property in North Fork, California. We're supposed to close escrow tomorrow. I'm a firm believer in "nothing is yours until the deal is done" and there is one glitch that cropped up on Monday so who knows what will happen in the next 48 hours. Cross your fingers for us. I'll post more as soon as the title is (or isn't) in our hands. For now, I'm going back to weaving - it's been a huge stess reliever for me this week.

The Basics of Alpacas - an email conversation

It's been awhile since I've posted. Life off-line has been quite busy with the kids end-of-school-year events and our own short vacations to Eugene Oregon and Oakhurst California.

I received an email from a friend who has been interested in getting alpacas for awhile now. After writing up the reply, I thought it would make a good post. So here it is....

At 11:12 AM 7/5/04 -0400, Georgene wrote:
>Hi Kimberly,
>I love your web site!!! We're actually not sure
>exactly what we want yet. We want them first as pets,

I'm very glad to hear you refer to the animals you're considering in the plural sense. As you know, camelids MUST be with their own kind. You can not have just one. Their sense of herd is very very strong. There are documented cases of animals who died from complications of being alone (stress is the biggest contributor).


>and we want the smaller sized -- but we're starting to wonder
>if we might as well shear them and sell their wool?

All of the domesticated camelids have to be shorn once a year. You don't have to keep the wool but shearing them yearly (usually in May) is an absolute act of kindness. It'll run less than $25 per animal (I pay $15 but it varies regionally) so it's not a huge charge. I'd suggest making sure you can do this at the ranch you buy the animals from. Have them put it in the contract just to be sure.

What if they need vet care? Who's going to give shots? You can give them yourself with a small amount of training.

Do you have a way to transport them? Transportation is actually not so daunting. A simple mini-van with the seats removed and mats on the floor will suffice. If it's a short trip, they won't soil the floor. An SUV works okay too but I'd do that only in an emergency and only with an alpaca.


>We also know that their manure is excellent for the garden
>and that people will pay well for it.

Maybe your market is different than it is here in California - where organic gardening is big. We can't give away the manure for free! LOL. But that's okay -we use it ourselves and what's left goes out in the unused area of the lot.


>They are such clean animals. We have a few llama farms here
>in our area that we visit, but the crea's are excellent bloodlines
>and coats costing upwards of $20K each! We love llama's and want
>to add 2 to our menagerie.

Wow. I'm not familiar with the llama market but I didn't realize it was still that high. I know many places you can get average llamas which serve very well for pet use for under $1k - probably even less. I wonder if what you're talking about are the new (and expensive) "Suri Llamas". Their fiber is like pencil curls instead of the puff-ball wool-like fiber of common llamas.


>If we decide not to sell their wool then we will likely go
>for the multi-colored black, white and tan, I know that the
>multi-colored would not desirable for selling it's wool
>therefore they are less expensive. Maybe you can tell me
>exactly the kind that would be best for us as pets!

Multis, aka patterned alpacas, are starting to be the new "fad" in alpaca ownership. As a handspinner, I'd prefer a multi colored fleece because then I get several colors in one wool where all of the other characteristics are identical. What I mean is even though the item I make will have several colors, it will all feel the same softness, have the same crimp, be the same lock length, etc.. I've made a scarf using two colors from 2 different animals and you can feel a distinct difference between the colors. OTOH, some people want all one color. White would be a popular color animal because you can dye the wool. Some people like the darker color animals. My point is: get what *you* want. You can do something with the wool if you decide to but that's such a small part of owning the animal that it shouldn't be a major part of the decision for a pet quality animal.

Pet quality animals (llamas or alpacas) will be gelded males. Owners will geld males they don't need in their breeding program and are not suited for anyone else's program (flaw in conformation) and then they sell them as pet quality. It works best for everyone that way.

Have you seen any blue eyed white animals? They are almost always gelded due to the blue eyes but they can have some of the softest fiber. BEW camelids typically end up being born deaf or will have crias who are BEW and deaf, hence the reason for culling them from the breeding programs.

I'm sure there's tons of other things I could share with you but let me leave you with this one bit of advice. Camelid ownership isn't like buying a dog - you don't pick it out from the litter, wait 6 weeks for it be weaned and then take it home never to speak to the breeder again. When we started researching alpacas, we were told to find ourselves a mentor. Ideally, this mentor will be the person you purchase your animals from. They need to be the person you feel the most comfortable learning from. They should show you ALL aspects of camelid ownership and continue to guide you after you've taken your animals home when questions arrive. And they will.

Best wishes with your search!
Kimberly

It pays to work.

All the time I've spent with Autumn Heat is starting to pay off. I went to the ranch today for a few hours. The first thing I always do is get Autie's halter and lead and go into his pen. In the pen is a mulberry tree just starting to grow leaves that the 'pacas love to eat. They'll stand up on their hind legs to try to reach any of the lowest leaves. Of course by now they've eaten all the ones they can reach. I, on the other hand, can reach farther up than they can. So I pulled down a few leaves and the boys came running over. You'd think I had candy!! Autie was the boldest. He would eat his leaves standing right there in front of me - the other boys would take the leaves and move out of arm's reach. After Autie took the last leaf, I reached out, told him "stand", put my arm around his neck, and put his halter on. How easy!!