The Beginning

So, here we are, my first ever blog! Yes, some may say it's crazy to start your own blog, before blogging a few times, but I don't usually do what "some may say"!!! Just ask my husband, Tom. My name is pronounced Judy Judy, so I learn if people have a good sense of humor right off the bat. This blog has come to fruition for many reasons, the first being a way to remember what I've done from day to day-ha! No, seriously, I want to share "green" tips, hilarious stories from my working llama ranch, and reach out to Mom's who just need a cool place to "check out".

The Royal Ranch is outside of the small mountain town Bailey, CO. Our elevation is almost 9,000 feet and the scenery is spectacular! Tom and I are both from the mountains (I am proud to be a Colorado Native) and it was really important to us to raise our kids in the beautiful area we grew up in. As a matter of fact, our kids have had a few of Tom's teachers! We are both extraordinarily dedicated to protecting the environment that we love so much. We feel very blessed to live the life that we do, and I am especially blessed to have been able to stay home with my kids all of these years.

Our ranch is steeped with history (which is a really nice way of saying we live in an OLD house!), started by Charles Royal, a semi-famous moon shiner. Good old Charlie was one heck of a guy, so we have always felt compelled to run our ranch in a way that we think he would approve of. Many of our "green" practices have come from necessity of living on an old, historical ranch. It was one of those things, when people started talking about going green, we had been doing a lot of the steps the experts suggested, for years; I thought I was just cheap!

But, I have to leave you all with some teasers, so I plan to share our "green" adventures in future blogs. I also plan to share stories from this fantastic little piece of the world. We are passionate about animal rescue, so as you can imagine, turning rescue llamas into working llamas is quite a chore and always leaves us with a funny story. Raising kids....well, that goes without saying, LOTS of funny things (or not so funny things) happen when you have three kids!

Tom has a "regular" job, running a machine shop, I run our B&B, we both do llama pack trips, take care of two campgrounds in the summer and now we have created Naked~Nure (100% all natural, reusable and nutrient rich llama manure "tea" for your plants), which is taking off like a shot. There are 30 animals on our ranch ranging from fish and a turtle all the way up to my fantastic llama employees. Needless to say, I have lots of things to share and adventures to take my followers on.

My friends and family have been telling me for years that some of the silly things that have happened here at the Royal Ranch would not and could not happen elsewhere. Which brings us to today's funny picture at the top of this blog, look closely. Which came first, the chicken or the turtle?

I am considered somewhat of the neighborhood animal "doc". The chicken was my patient, she had broken her leg trying to get away from a bear, my wonderful neighbor Harry brought her to me. Anyway, the only outdoor pen I had available for Rusty was the turtle "run" in our yard. At first Rusty the chicken was a little afraid of Holiday the turtle, but as you can see they became fast friends when it cooled down a bit! I am proud to say that Rusty is back at her home and happily laying eggs again!

So people, let's kick this blog off with a bang!!! Let's see some of your crazy pet pics, if they're good enough I may even turn it into a contest!!

Kind regards,

Judy