The largest one, the International Llama Association, was sponsoring a conference in Sunriver, a resort in eastern Oregon. I had been looking forward to it, but when Kelly and I walked into the large wood-beamed conference hall filled with hundreds of chatting llama owners, I felt intimidated.

“Kelly! Rosana! What are you doing here? Do you have llamas?” We turned to see an old friend, Tanya Charter, whom we hadn’t seen in several years. During that time she had acquired some llamas. She introduced us to a couple sitting with her, and they turned out to know one of Kelly’s sisters. Small world. I stopped feeling shy and delved into three intense days of information and conversation.

“Do you pronounce llama ‘lama’ or ‘yama’?” I asked llama owners. Though ‘yama’ was the Indian and Spanish pronunciation, most called their animals ‘lamas.’ So we did too.

One evening at the exhibit booths, I bought a copy of Speechless Brothers, by Andy Tillman, a history of llamas and a guide to llama care, now out-of-print. At bedtime I thought I would glance through a few pages. It was after three in the morning when I finally turned out the light, and my dreams were filled with llamas, South American Indians, and mountain trails.

The conference wound up with a tour of Patterson Llamas in Sisters, Oregon, containing the largest herd of llamas in the United States. It was astonishing to see over five hundred llamas in one place. The llamas came running to see the hundreds of humans too.

The late afternoon sun blinked through miles of pine forests as Kelly and I drove home, thinking it all over. When I asked, “What makes a beautiful llama?” people answered in many different ways. I liked Dick Patterson’s rejoinder, “What’s a beautiful woman, a beautiful horse, a beautiful painting? It’s in the eye of the beholder.”

I felt enthusiastic about llamas, and I talked to Kelly about maybe becoming breeders ourselves. If what we had heard at the conference was correct, llamas were an excellent investment. I thought we could make part of our living by raising them. It would be a lot of fun.

Kelly was driving. He didn’t seem to be as involved in my daydream as I was. He knew I tended to get carried away. Then he said, “What about small llamas?”

“Huh?”

“I wonder if we could breed small llamas,” he said. “Most people seem to favor the large animals, and that makes sense for wilderness packing. But what about people who might just want some for pets? Small ones would still be useful for backpacking, even though they would carry less. They could travel in smaller vehicles, too.”

“Small ones would be good for people who might be intimidated by large animals,” I reflected. “That one time I was on a horse has left its mark on me.” At an uncle’s ranch one summer, I had gone for a long ride on a horse who tried to scrape me off into the trees.

Another reason for small llamas occurred to me. “Weavers might be interested. What if a smaller llama with long wool could produce roughly the same amount of wool as larger llamas with shorter wool? It could be like dwarf fruit trees.”

“I don’t know if it would be hard to breed them, but it would be fun to try,” Kelly said. “I’ve been thinking about Tumbleweed. Remember him?”

Indeed I did. He was an exceptionally small young male llama at the Taylor’s ranch. Tumbleweed had a dear face, with a bit of hay usually dangling Huck Finn-style from his mouth. His wool was longer than Levi’s. Like Levi, he had appaloosa markings.

I remembered that Sally thought he was special too. “Would they sell him? How could we know if he carries genes for smallness? Maybe he’s just stunted in his growth for some reason.”

“His mother was on the small side, and Sally mentioned a small half-brother from the same father,” Kelly remembered.

“Sounds good. And after all we heard at the conference about llamas being such herd animals, I bet Levi would be happier with another llama right from the start.”

“Seems like we’re getting serious here,” Kelly said. “When I pick up Ajila and Levi, shall I find out more about Tumbleweed and maybe buy him?” He would soon be going to the San Francisco airport to meet his teenage daughter’s flight from New Orleans. On the way home, they would pick up Levi. The Taylors, soon to move to Montana with their herd, lived in northern California.

“Sure! I guess you can fit Ajila and her luggage and two llamas into the van. I wonder what she’ll think of all this. So we don’t have any llamas yet, but we have an official breeding plan, small llamas with long wool. I wonder if we could breed for good disposition too. Llamas generally seem to be good natured, but there’s bound to be some variation.”

“I don’t know how much that’s a matter of inheritance,” said Kelly, “but let’s go for it.”

Our interest in breeding small llamas continued. A geneticist told me that we had chosen a relatively easy thing to breed for. Height was controlled by several genes; the exact number wasn’t known. Chances were good that small llamas would reproduce small. Posey wasn’t short, but her offspring by small males might be. Lil Bit had grown some since we bought her, but she was still very small. She was a little too young to breed; we’d give her a few more months.

The llamas seemed to be thinking about breeding too. Early in the spring, when we resumed regular llama hikes, we took Levi and Tumbleweed out. After a few mouthfuls of fresh green grass, they ran up to the fence around the females’ area.

Immediately the familiar “junior high dance” routine began. Posey and Lil Bit stood very straight and tall, clucking, their tails arched high. Levi and Tumbleweed were eagerly touching noses through the fence with the girls, heads moving up and down, all the way to the ground and back up again. The males’ posture was more upright than it had been in the fall. Junior high dances had given way to high school.

Whiskers was running around in the males’ field, along the fence nearest the females. He was grimacing. “Whiskers looks mad,” Kelly said. “He didn’t get to go to the dance.”

We chose Mother’s Day for the first breeding. It was to be Posey and Whiskers. We had many discussions about what llama to breed to Posey. She was ready. Whiskers was three and a half, so he was fully grown. The other males, not quite two, might not be able to breed successfully yet. I was eager to see a Tumbleweed-Posey baby, as Tumbleweed had such good wool and a more placid disposition than Whiskers, but I agreed that a Whiskers-Posey baby could be wonderful too.

We put Posey in a newly-fenced pasture next to her old one. Then we brought Whiskers to her. With the fence between them, they both snorted and stood up tall. Whiskers’ tail wagged rapidly; it seemed to be a gesture of assertiveness. Kelly led him in, and I closed the gate. Posey came right up, then retreated.

Whiskers went straight to the females’ dung pile. He spent about ten minutes there, sniffing it thoroughly, then angling his neck up into the air. He was very interested in it.

“An experienced stud will go right to work, but sometimes the young ones get hung up performing flehmen at the dung pile,” we had been told by another breeder. Whiskers was supposedly learning from the scent of the pile that there was a female open for breeding. When he seemed to be sniffing the air, a gland at the back of his mouth was operating, decoding the message of the dung pile.

Posey watched him, then came over to sniff a camera which she hadn’t seen before. Our old camera was familiar, scarcely worth a sniff.

They approached each other–”finally!” I said–and Whiskers reared up as if fighting another male. Posey ran away from him. He discovered the lush green grass, much nicer than the grass in his field, and he grazed his way around the pasture.

“It’s cold,” I said, as the sun disappeared behind a cloud.

“We could go sit in the van. They wouldn’t be able to see us, and it would be warmer,” suggested Kelly. Whiskers frolicked across the field.

We settled into the warmer environment of the van. “Junior high dances is right,” I grumbled. “She’s on one side of the field and he’s on the other. I thought they’d just do what comes naturally. Are we going to have to teach them what to do?”

“Whiskers is kind of stand-offish with other llamas,” Kelly said. “Maybe it’ll just take him a while before he pays much attention to her.”

“Then I’ll go dig in the garden, and watch from there,” I said. “This could take all day.”

“Okay,” Kelly said. “I’ll leave you the cameras. Guess I’ll go inside. Call me when something happens.”

We walked up toward the garden, closer to the other llamas. Lil Bit, Levi, and Tumbleweed were watching Posey and Whiskers. I worked for an hour or so in the garden. Nothing much happened. Even the other llamas stopped paying attention. Lil Bit chased the peacocks.

After a couple of days of nothing happening, we took Whiskers back home. We remembered hearing that you stood a better chance of breeding if you put the female llama in with the male.

We did just that the next day, after staking Levi and Tumbleweed out where they couldn’t see the goings-on. We didn’t want to make them jealous, and we wanted to minimize any disturbance among the males.

Then we walked Posey over. Whiskers made lovely gurgling noises in his throat. I’d heard breeders refer to these sounds as ‘orgling.’

As soon as Posey was in his field, Whiskers tried to mount her. We cheered. Posey explored the place, sniffing dung piles. She didn’t sit down for him. For several minutes, she strolled around. Whiskers had rested his front on her behind and was walking on his hind legs only. Lil Bit was running around by the fence, most interested in the proceedings.

“I guess it’s progress,” Kelly said.”Since we can see this field better from the house, let’s leave Posey in here for several hours and keep checking.”

So we did. Nothing happened. Late in the afternoon, we put Posey back in with Lil Bit and brought Levi and Tumbleweed home. Whiskers chased them around for a while.

The next day it rained off and on. During one of the nice spells, we took the two younger males out to graze and we again put Posey in with Whiskers. As before, he orgled and tried to mount her, and as before, she walked around the field with him hanging on behind. We decided that our absence might speed the course of true love, so we went inside to watch from the window. By the time we were at the window, Whiskers was browsing. That was it.

We went outside to remove Posey, planning to bring her back later, but after she was on lead, Kelly and I both had the same idea. What would Whiskers do if Posey were sitting down?

We hadn’t trained her to sit down. When I touched her legs, she pranced around, then sat to get away from me. Kelly took a firm hold on her lead. Whiskers came over, and began sniffing around Posey’s tail. Posey, startled, jumped up.

We got her back down, and Whiskers came right back. Orgling, he stepped over Posey, rubbing her sides with his front feet. He sat down on her. I quietly let myself out of the field and ran for the camera. Kelly was still holding Posey’s lead.

Finally something was happening. We had given Whiskers plenty of bawdy encouragement these past few days. As I took some pictures of the three of them, I hoped Kelly wasn’t too uncomfortable, hunched down and holding Posey’s lead. I wondered how long it took llamas to mate. Forty-five minutes came into my mind from somewhere, but I wasn’t sure. At least it had stopped drizzling.

“It was fascinating,” Kelly told me later. “Whiskers had a glazed look in his eyes. He seemed off in some other world and he never stopped orgling. I couldn’t believe how calm Posey was. You know she’s usually rather nervous, but she was so peaceful. And affectionate–she just kept nuzzling me, sniffing my pockets and my cap, rubbing my cheeks.”

“What about that time when she turned her head up to Whiskers?” I asked.

“I couldn’t really tell what that was,” Kelly replied. “You saw how he kept trying to bite her ears. She didn’t seem to mind that at all. I bet she just wanted to nuzzle him too.”

Posey’s rear was glistening. “Looks like the deed is done!” said Kelly.

“Now let’s hope for a daughter,” I suggested, imagining Posey giving birth easily to a beautiful baby girl llama, full term, everything perfect. We had wondered if motherhood might settle Posey’s youthful skittishness; this calm was a good sign.

“Next time let’s tie a string around her tail,” Kelly suggested. “Then we can pull the tail aside just when Whiskers sits down.”

I objected. “If llamas have been in existence for all these years, they must manage to perpetuate the species without strings attached.”

Kelly convinced me that it would be worth trying. “After all, remember the breeder who put her llama’s tail into a French braid? And there was that very woolly llama who never got pregnant until she was sheared. We’re just helping nature.”

We tried the string technique the next day, and it worked fine. Posey and Whiskers had a good breeding session. We did it another day, also with good results. The llamas were getting the hang of it, but when we tried without the string, that long tail of Posey’s was in the way again.

We had another problem. Whenever we brought the two younger males back in with Whiskers after he had been breeding, he was one aggressive llama. He chased them around vigorously, claiming the territory as his. The males had always fought, but this was too much.

We put Posey and Lil Bit into their new pasture, separate from their older, smaller one. We put Whiskers in there by himself for the breeding season.

So Posey had been bred. Was she pregnant?

Pregnancy tests had become available for llamas just the previous year. You had to wait at least three weeks after breeding. Then you nicked the female’s ear and mailed off some of the blood in a little plastic container. After the requisite three weeks, we caught Posey, tied her up, and put alcohol on her ears. I made several cuts, but all we got was a drop or two. Kelly felt sick at messing up her ears. I was determined, buoyed up by my desire to learn all about llama care.

We obviously didn’t have the technique down. I phoned a friend, and she gave me more detailed instructions. We went back out, but by then I couldn’t bring myself to slice up Posey. Kelly made the cut. Same thing: not enough blood.

“This is ridiculous,” Kelly said. “Let’s try field-checking. At least it won’t cause any pain.” If a female who had been bred didn’t let a male mount her, it often meant she was pregnant.

We put Posey in with Whiskers. She was most unwilling to enter his field, balking at every step. “Oh good,” I said, “maybe that means she’s pregnant.”

Whiskers tried to mount Posey as soon as he could. She stood looking around, as if there weren’t the weight of a male llama on her hindquarters. But after a minute, she sat down. Whiskers went to work.

“Darn it!” I exploded. “I thought llama breeding was easy!”

“How reliable is this check-breeding business?” Kelly asked me.

“I think it’s pretty accurate. A lot of breeders use it. But here we are well into the summer, and we don’t know if this girl is pregnant.” I turned to Whiskers. “If you haven’t done the job, fellow, we’ll try Tumbleweed. How would you like that?” I knew he’d hate it.

We had to wait another three weeks before we could try the blood test. Neither one of us was willing to slice ears again, so our vet came by and drew blood.

We sent it off in the mail and I began going to the post office with a sense of anticipation. At last it was there–the envelope from Rocky Mountain Laboratories.

I took the mail out to the car. My heart was pounding. I opened the envelope. “Well, hooray!” I said out loud. “Posey, you’re pregnant!” Llama breeding was easy.

Our pastures were full of females, eight of them. With three little ones, the evening run was busy. The babies’ antics would stimulate the yearlings, Blossom and Pocahontas, to run around with them. Sometimes Lil or Posey would kick up her heels for a moment as well. We called it the Indianapolis Five Hundred.

We had been breeding our ladies, but we weren’t sure who had gotten pregnant yet. It was still too soon to do blood testing. I heard of a strategy for testing pregnancy: you take your stud, on lead, for a stroll through the females’ pasture. The ladies’ responses to him are likely to tell you a lot. We had used a variation of this technique, where we would have a male and female meet across the fence; it was usually reliable.

So we haltered Levi and took him in with the females. All five youngsters came running over. As he greeted his three daughters and the other two girls, he curled his tail around submissively, a typical adult male response to babies.

I took him toward the adult females. Lil spat at him several times. “Great, maybe she’s pregnant,” Kelly said.

Levi and I were near Posey’s rear end. He sniffed it. She ran away. Levi went after her, and I kept up with him, still holding his lead rope. We ran up hill and down. Levi started trying to mount Posey. Abruptly, she sat down. Levi sat on top of her, and began orgling. Soon he was breeding her.

The young llamas had been running along behind, and now they stood by the breeding pair. Levi, as usual when breeding, seemed oblivious to everything going on around him. Posey sniffed me in a mildly curious way when I happened to stand in front of her. Everyone but Juliet was gathered around. I patted little Renaissance. Renny was about a month old now, and not easy to catch. But she too seemed lulled by the event, and allowed me to stroke her.

Kelly and I were visualizing another lovely daughter. We practiced visualization in many aspects of our lives. We did it faithfully with all the llama breedings, imagining that a healthy female baby would be the result.

Was it just coincidence that our pastures were full of healthy females? I thought of a quote I’d read somewhere: “When I pray, coincidences happen. When I don’t, they don’t.” We intended to give coincidences every possible opportunity, so we pictured Posey having a lovely Levi daughter the following year. This was the first time we had bred her to him.

Lil was trying to bite Posey’s ear. Then she nibbled on Levi’s front foot. We shoved her away, but she sat down right next to Posey. Blossom tried to mount her father, and Kelly pulled her off. Lil got up and went back to nibbling on the breeding llamas. Lally stood on her father’s back feet, but he didn’t notice a thing.

I haltered Lil, thinking I’d put her out of the way in the barn. She resisted me every step; after a few yards, she sat down and wouldn’t budge. I just left her there. “Maybe she’s not pregnant, after all,” I said to Kelly.

With Lil Bit sitting on the sidelines, the last few minutes of the breeding were quieter. Blossom investigated Levi’s face. Juliet wandered out from the barn and sniffed his rear. Eventually he got up. We wouldn’t know it until the next summer, but Levi and Posey had just started a daughter.