Rick spent 15 years in electronics in Silicon Valley. In 1985 we moved out of Silicon Valley into the small town of Benicia and started our own business in the swimming pool service industry. Rick worked the business full time and Mary helped while working full time for Pacific Telephone. After about five years and after 23 years with Pac Bell she quit and went to work full time with Rick in running the family business. The business grew from a small family affair to 18 employees and having trained people running the show so we have more freedom to enjoy life outside of work. We have two grown sons, Ken & Shawn. Our youngest son Shawn, and his wife Daphne, gave us our first grandson in January of 2005, and a second one in February of 2008.What a wonderful time of life! In the winter of 1999 we found an awesome 5-acre property in the beautiful rolling foothills of Northern California in an area just out of the town of Vacaville. We had always wished that we had had parents with property and animals so our boys could visit their grandparents on the "ranch or farm". Since that was not the case, we are making it happen for our grandkids. But what kind of animals? Then while visiting family in Oregon we were introduced to the most magical creatures. Llamas. They had sheep and had gotten a couple of llamas to use as guards. Later during that same visit, we were sitting in the old Hotel in downtown Jacksonville, Oregon and what to our surprise we saw a man walking a llama right down the main street with a large red white and blue top hat and a stars and strips blanket across its back. Kids were running up to see the llama and he just stood like a rock and let them touch him. He was magnificent! Right then and there we knew we wanted LLAMAS!! Between September 2004 and May of 2005, our herd grew from two girls to thirteen girls, three geldings and three males. We even had five girls pregnant. Our first babies were due in the summer of 2005. It was amazing how after attending different shows and seeing so many different types of llamas your "taste" was influenced.Rick and I both feel in love with the large bone heavy wool Argentine Llama. Therefore it was no surprise that our first male purchased to become our herdsire turned out to be ¾ Argentine.Kobra's Lucky Lucianni is his name and he has given us some incredible cria and has earned his ALSA Get of Sire Championship. What a magical time in our lives! In May of 2005, we went for a Saturday afternoon drive with friends in the Sierra Foothills and ended up purchasing a 12-acre "ranch", which was just perfect for our heavy wool llamas. In just three days time, we purchased a place and sold our place in Vacaville, CA. We were extremely fortunate to sell to the first couple that looked and moved within six weeks! Now, we have room to grow our herd and enjoy our wonderful family and friends. Boy, and grow we have.In just the first three years of living in Grass Valley our herd had grown to 63 llamas.Talk about addictions!! We are truly "llamaholics". It is hard to remember life before llamas. We are so involved with attending shows, breeding, having clinics and doing anything and everything we possibly can to learn more and promote these incredible creatures. At first we didn't understand the importance of showing and earning points towards ALSA Recognition of Merit and Halter Champion but just had a blast showing in the Novice classes (designed for beginners both of the human type and llama) and winning beautiful ribbons.Then one day the light came on and Mary finally took showing seriously and really began making an attempt to "fine-tune" her showing abilities. Wild Oak Llamas has come a long way in just a few short years.We have even had 9 different llamas place in the Top 10 at the ALSA Grand Nationals in that time frame. Learning about "old bloodlines" and setting goals for that "perfect" llama you want to be known for producing.WOW, what an adventure for us to be making together this time in our lives. In July of 2008 we attended for the first time, one of Kay Sharpnack's Walk-About Sales. What an experience.Kay and Eric had put their best in the sale and we were able to purchase the high selling female, Heylee. We were also able to purchase other remarkable llamas from old bloodlines that will only enhance our breeding program. In January on 2009 we made another very major addition to our herd and breeding program by becoming partners with Dan & Marilyn Milton ( Highland Llamas) in Silver Moon Chiri Alluro. In 2010, we were able to purchase GNLC Santiago, another awesome, proven Suri Herdsire to add to our breeding program. He is from different bloodlines than Alluro, a son of GNLC Dom out of an incredible King Crimson daughter. We are very excited about all our males standing at stud and look forward to the offspring they will produce for us! We are no longer offering outside breedings to any of our males, but you can always diversify your program by purchasing one of their offsprings!
We have learned to look not only at the wool type and size, but to consider all aspects of pedigree; conformation, disposition, style and presence. We realize that with breeding, we are responsible for a living, breathing creature and need to be sure that the cria has the best quality of life we can provide. Life is great! Our only regret is that we didn't discover Llamas sooner. Hopefully others will learn from this that the animal world, especially the llama, can only improve the quality of life. As always, visitors are welcome to come and see what life with llamas is like.We always have room for new friends and fellow 'llamaholics'! Rick and Mary
