I finished yesterdays blog by letting you know that Brooklyn and Pippi are never apart. It only seemed right to talk about Brooklyn, Pippi's mom next.

Brooklyn was one of the first alpacas I trained. Okay let's admit it, I was trained to train with my girlfriend Brooklyn and her equally good looking girl friend Manhattan. I spent a bitter cold March week with Janet Franklin (master of 'pac training) being taught how to teach Brooklyn and Manhattan to walk on a lead. This was done in preparation for my first show- Alpacapalooza! I will never attempt to train two alpacas in a week. Now I usually start in February and give it plenty of time.

Janet got me trained and I helped her to train the girls. Brooklyn, Manhattan and I left Janet on the farm and were lucky enough to hitch a ride with my not yet good friends Kris and Albert Olson from San Juan Island. Off we went to Puyallup, Washington (Do not attempt to say this word you WILL say it wrong. It is pronounced Pea-y'all-up).

I was only able to stay for the first two days of the show, and then had to get back to Chicago for work. I showed Manhattan and we got the gate (I have of course, a story about that). Before taking the girls back to the islands Albert did me the kind favor of showing Brooklyn. She took a fourth.

It was unreal to be called in the middle of Seatac airport by someone who you never knew was going to be such a great friend, and to be told that an animal, that up until two weeks ago you didn't know, and that wasn't able to walk on a lead, won a ribbon at a show with over 900 animals. I was actually smiling and jumping up and down (only a little jumping).



Tune in tomorrow!