Inside the Santa Ynez Valley Magazine Winter 2002 Edition

Life with Llamas
by Leslee Goodman

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It was love at first sight that brought Joan and Don Speirsto the Valley in 1980. Deciding she was fed up with how urban, affluent and materialistic her native Palos Verde had become, Joan put a compass to

a map, drew a circle enclosing a 100-mile radius of Los Angeles, and vowed to find a new place to live. The Santa Ynez Valley was the first and last place she visited.

It had everything I was looking for, she explains. The people, the setting, the amount of open space. The Valley is rural, yet sophisticated, with an airport, colleges, and museums close by. It also had Dunn School and after putting our first two sons through public schools and teaching in public schools ourselves, we wanted our youngest son to have the experience of a private school.

Don was agreeable as long as he could commute to Los Angeles, where he was a stockbroker with a busy investment practice. The Speirs found a house on Alamo Pintado, enrolled their son Dan in Dunn and settled happily into life in the Valley. They also began investigating livestock options so Dan could join the local 4-H club.

They were drawn to llamas' for their beauty, intelligence, gentle nature, minimal space requirements and the fact that you don't have to kill them to have a product. They bought a single male, named Gabby Hayes. Gabby was such a hit, the Speirs acquired two females. Within a year, they were on their way to owning a small herd.

That development suited Joan just fine. A dynamo of a woman, she has had many incarnations throughout her adult life from third-grade schoolteacher to fulltime Mom, to real estate agent, to ceramic tile artist and kitchen designer to property manager.

Soon Joan was operating a bed-and-breakfast out of their picturesque hillside home near Solvang, and her guests were delighted to find llamas on the property. Many wanted to buy the llamas and take them home as pets especially the furry little babies. Almost overnight Joan had a thriving Llama business that was outgrowing the confines of their property.

So Joan and Don bought 100-acres on Armour Ranch Road and proceeded to build a graceful, Mediterranean-style home and offices that Joan designed overlooking local vineyards and their pond and grazing animals.

Today Joan presides over a herd of nearly 100 lamas the genus to which llamas and alpacas belong at the Spier's El Ranchito de Las Llamas y Alpacas. She also manages five employees, who handle the daily animal care and business administration, conducts tours of the ranch, writes and lectures on llama and alpaca raising and advises women about ranching as a home-based business.

More than a business, lama-raising has become a way of life for the Speirs. Joan has traveled twice to Peru to learn more about the species and the products made there from alpaca. Squeezing in a visit to the sacred grounds of Machu Picchu while there was one of the most incredible days of my life. She has enriched her herd with breeding stock from Peru, Chile, England, Canada and from premier breeding herds throughout the United States.

Although Don has little interest in the animals as a daily activity, he loves the lifestyle and has been very supportive of the business in terms of an investment, Joan says. He leaves me to run the ranch and he sticks to the stock market.

Their idyllic lifestyle shattered on May 11, 2001 when Don, who was playing golf with friends in Palm Desert, suffered a major stroke.

We were lucky, really, Joan reflects The stroke occurred in the right side of Don's brain, affecting the left side of his body, but spared the nerve centers responsible for speech, continence and many other bodily functions.

But months of trial lay ahead for the Speirs. After leaving the hospital, Don's new home became the Rehabilitation Institute of Santa Barbara. He spent months there undergoing rigorous physical therapy to recover his physical abilities.

Clergy, therapists, and other people came from the Valley to see Don as soon as he got to the Rehabilitation Institute, Joan says. They didn't wait for us to call them they came right to Don's room.

Besides Joan and youngest son Dan, the Speirs two older sons and their families became regulars in Don's room. Garrett, a noted painter, who is part of the Oak Group, who lives in Santa Barbara with his wife, Ginny, and two children, came every day, sometimes twice a day, to see Don at the Rehabilitation Institute. Son Ken, with his wife SanSan, both college teachers in China returned for a month that first year to help, and again in 2002. The recovery has truly been a family project that we could never have done without our sons and their families, says Joan, including the incredible support of our grandchildren.

Although he graduated from the Rehabilitation Institute with flying colors, another ordeal in the long recovery process now faced them instead of returning to home and open fields of lamas, Don went directly to Solutions at Santa Barbara. In this day treatment/residential facility Don would spend each day of the week undergoing full-time physical, speech and occupational therapy, but good news was that he could return home on weekends.

Don's hard work paid off and his functioning improved. He began spending longer periods of time at home and less at Solutions, until six months ago when he came home for good.

People have been so supportive, Joan says. Organizations we've given to all our lives, never imagining we'd need them, have had services and programs for us. And people from organizations we haven't been members of have come through as well. You never really think about what would happen to you in a life-threatening situation.

Today Don has resumed a near-normal schedule, although he relies on a wheelchair for mobility and still takes therapy sessions at home. He's even back on the golf course a few times a week. And, he has returned to his work as an investment advisor, helping his new partner, son Dan, now married, graduated from college and with years of his own professional experience. Don even plans to resume lecturing.

Don is a walking encyclopedia of numbers, Joan says. He had 700 accounts before his stroke, and he remembers every one along with every phone number and nearly every trade he has ever made.

Moreover, Don has discovered he never really needed to commute to Los Angeles all those years, after all. He and Dan handle everything via telephone and internet from the Valley.

I always knew he was smart, but since his stroke I've been absolutely amazed at his mental processes. He has lost some function, yes. And that makes him closer to normal.

Throughout their ordeal, the Speirs have been sustained and encouraged by the care and concern of their neighbors.

People have gone out of their way to reach out to us, and to make us still feel a part of things, Joan says. Whenever we go out to restaurants, to the theater, or the golf course people accommodate Don's wheelchair and slowed walking and whatever needs we have. All these many months Joan has relied upon a deep network of friends for physical and emotional support. People have told me repeatedly that being a caregiver during a long illness or recovery is just as stressful as being a patient, she says. I've tried to set up a system for taking care of myself so that I can be there to take care of Don. Her friends have been an integral part of that system. Nevertheless, Joan says she is overwhelmed with some regularity and has a meltdown whenever I need one, she laughs. I think they're part of this process.

As time passes, every week Don gets better and better and the Spier's farm is returning to normal. Unaware of the life tragedies of their owners, the alpacas and llamas continue their placid days in green pastures, produce their annual coats of fur and babies, all the while providing an unending source of stability and comfort to their owners.