Monthly Archives: January 2008

Yellow Wood enters the high speed internet world–sorta

Posted on by January 22, 2013

Today is a big day for the internet activities at Yellow Wood Llamas. We have been on the web since 1994 having registered one of the first 100,000 domain names on the internet. However, because of our rural location, low population density and the rough terrain in our area none of the big providers have been willing to invest to bring DSL or digital cable to our area. Therefore we have been limited to using ISDN, an older technology that is about twice dial up speed.

hughesnet_dish-sm.jpgAfter hearing promise after promise from Comcast for four years (they even sold me high speed internet once but couldn’t provide the service) we have broken down and signed up with Hughes Net. Hughes net will not be able to match DSL or cable for speed, but it should be five to ten times faster than our ISDN connection. The equipment is supposed to be installed today, so I should be able to provide reports on our experience over the next few weeks, for those that are in a similar situation.

My Dad would have been a blogger

Posted on by January 8, 2008

As I was rummaging around in the basement this weekend my eyes were drawn to one of the many bookcases. I zeroed in on two shelves that were holding items of significant sentimental value. Collected on those two shelves were diaries and journals that covered nearly 30 years of my dad’s life. The first diary on the shelf was for 1945. The last diary was for 1981. My dad had made a number of attempts to write a daily diary prior to 1945 but each time the entries ended after a few weeks. In 1945 while overseas with the Army Air Corp he finally was able to hit his stride and make nearly daily entries albeit many no more than a sentence or two.

After he returned home the responsibilities of supporting and raising a family seemed to prevent him from staying with his diary until 1959 when he restarted his daily chronicles. This time he made entries nearly every day until he lost his battle with cancer in 1981.

My Dad wrote of everyday living and current events and strayed away from much of the personal information many put in their “dear diaries”. As I read through a few of these diaries I realize that my Dad would have been one of the first too have jumped into the blogging world. He had the 60’s analog of a blog in the mid-60s when he wrote two weekly newspaper columns for the Franklin, IN newspaper–one on flying and one on camping.

I count myself very fortunate that my dad took the time to chronicle so many years of his and my life in his personal journals and diaries. We can only hope that our own ramblings will pass the test of time like my Dad’s paper blogs.

Fred

Grooming

Posted on by January 24, 2013

Llamas benefit from regular, short grooming sessions to remove debris and dead wool. If wool is allowed to matte, air circulation is hindered, and the llama is more susceptible to heat stress. This is true of short and long wooled llamas, although the long-wooled varieties will naturally have more of a problem. Regular sessions desensitize and train your llama, and also make it better prepared for final grooming required for show preparation. Long sessions of monotonous, often painful hair-pulling should be avoided. Start grooming your llama well before show season, and keep it reasonably groomed with regular attention.

There are probably as many different grooming tools and preparations as there are llama owners. The types of tools you will need to groom your llama will depend on the character of your llamas wool. A good source of grooming supplies is Quality Llama Products