Some of you have expressed interest in learning about the critters, so I decided to start with the one who, for me, really started all of this crazy.  Minnett Mann, my first gelding, is, and always has been, my sweet boy.  I wrote the following during graduate school, about five years ago.

Just a Minnett

I’ve never been good at goodbyes, and, in August of 2005, when I stood at the gate of the Illinois State Fair cattle ring, waiting to show my favorite llama for what was supposed to be the last time, it felt far too much like a goodbye. He was four, considered an “adult male,” and was misbehaving. I was nineteen, barely an adult myself, and trying very hard not to cry. I knew that I would never walk into the show ring with Minnett again. I was going away for three months, and he would…