But what exactly is horticulture? It’s the technical term that refers to the field and science of plant development, which includes everything from care and manufacture of trees and shrubs to genetic alterations to typical produce to keep it fresh and free from bruising, such as many tomatoes sold in the United States.

The industry has eight subcategories which deal with more specific aspects of horticulture. Arboriculture deals with vines, shrubbery, trees, and other woody plants. This includes areas of research, planting, and care of all these types of foliage. Floriculture similarly deals with flowers and floral crops.

Landscape horticulture deals with the production and maintenance of plants involved in landscaping in all areas and climates. Olericulture and Pomology deal with vegetables and fruits, respectively. Viticulture refers more specifically to the production and marketing of grapes (as to wineries).

Postharvest physiology also at times crosses into the field of food science, as it tries to develop means of preventing spoilage and damage to all of the horticultural crops–including fruits and vegetables.

Fortunately, horticulture is the name of an industry that requires varied talents from many types of people. Engineers, inspectors, business managers, scientists and researchers, geneticists, and teachers are just a few of the workers needed in most areas of horticulture.

The industry is not only a stable one–it is growing. As I mentioned, many who enjoy the study of food science may actually find a rewarding career in horticulture. So how does an individual go on to become a horticulturalist?

Well, while your education is still in process, you can start with basic jobs that may seem menial or unrelated. Check out local floral shops, greenhouses, or gardening departments in hardware stores. You can even get involved in landscape design! All of these will help you begin to build a fundamental, practical knowledge of plants.

Do your research on the education level required for entry-level positions in the field you are most interested. Would you like to be a teacher, or would you prefer getting into advertising and marketing? Contact local firms or institutions; you might even ask about future hiring plans.

Decide which area of horticulture you would like to go into, and begin gearing your own education toward that particular division of the industry. Many institutions offer undergraduate degrees in horticulture, so from there, you should try to take classes which are tailored toward your area of interest.

Whenever there are speakers in your area, go and listen to them so that you might hear any words of wisdom they have to impart. Other than that, good luck–it’s a booming field, and the work is both helpful and rewarding!

Holbee Productions http://www.frederickrice.com/ horticultural speaker and lecturer, garden Designer and consultant. Art Gib is a freelance writer.

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‘Hungarian nobleman leaves indelible mark’

Agoston Haraszthy made an impression wherever he went. After serving as a member of the Royal Hungarian Guards of Francis I, Emperor of Austria-Hungary in 1830, he was forced to flee Europe for fear of being branded a revolutionist.
In 1842, he returned to Hungary and convinced his father to liquidate their considerable holdings so the entire family could immigrate to America. When they arrived in Sauk City, Wisconsin, they were among the best-capitalized immigrants of the 19th century.
Along with his other entrepreneurial investments, Haraszthy began agricultural experiments and achieved considerable success in sheep raising and growing hops.
Even with his considerable success, he was still disappointed at not being able to establish the high quality vineyards of his native Hungary. The tug of the western frontier pulled at the Haraszthy family, and they headed, by wagon train, to California in 1848.
Agoston was the wagon master of the train, which included about sixty immigrants. Without serious incident, the wagon train arrived at Warner Hot Springs, in San Diego County.
Colonel Jonathan Warner, a former militiaman who established Warner Hot Springs in 1844, apprised Haraszthy about the agriculture and the politics in the San Diego area. A scant 650 people, mainly vaqueros, Yankee sailors who had jumped ship, and a few Mormon soldiers from the Mormon Battalion populated San Diego.

Haraszthy’s family now included his wife, six children, his father and stepmother, and Thomas W. Sutherland, former U.S. Attorney for Wisconsin Territory, who was now Haraszthy’s stepbrother.
The Polish immigrant purchased a plot of land adjacent to San Luis Rey Mission, and, with his sons, Attila and Arpad, first planted a large fruit orchard. He later bought 160 acres more in Mission Valley and planted peach and cherry trees sent to him from New York State.
Haraszthy never ceased his investment activity as well as his interest in community politics. With Don Juan Bandini, Haraszthy set up the first regularly scheduled omnibus transit system and established a livery stable. He established a very profitable butcher shop.
With other real estate speculators, he helped establish the subdivision of Middletown. Haraszthy Street existed there until the early 1960s when it was wiped from the map by the construction of Interstate 5.

When San Diego County was chartered in 1850, Haraszthy was elected the first City Marshall, while his father, Charles, was elected Magistrate and Land Commissioner. His stepbrother, Tom Sutherland, became San Diego’s first City Attorney.
In 1851, he was elected to the State Assembly and resigned his other offices. While in the legislature, then meeting in Vallejo, Haraszthy succeeded in getting funding for the expansion of San Diego Harbor and the county’s first public hospital.
He was the first legislator to introduce legislation to divide California into two states; North and South. Because of powerful political interest in Northern California, that bill died.
All the while, Haraszthy continued searching for land more suitable for agriculture than San Diego’s subtropical desert land offered. Early in 1852, he purchased 210 acres near San Francisco’s Mission Dolores. He moved the entire family there at the end of the Assembly Session.
Haraszthy’s noteworthy accomplishments didn’t stop. He introduced the “Zinfandel” red wine grape and the “Muscat of Alexandria” raisin grape to California.
He invented an efficient gold refining process, and was founding partner in the Eureka Gold and Silver Refining Company. The firm became one of the major contract refiners for the San Francisco Mint.

Because of his reputation for fairness and honesty, Haraszthy was appointed Assayer of the Mint in 1855.
He developed the first large, high-quality grape vineyard at Crystal Springs in San Mateo County. At this new ranch, Haraszthy designed and laid out a nursery and horticultural garden, which he named Los Flores.
With his son’s help, he planted fruit trees and shrubs imported from the east. At about this same time, he received a shipment of six choice rooted vines and 160 cuttings from Hungary.
In the shipment were two small bundles. One was the Muscat of Alexandria and the other was said to be the famous mystery grape, the Zinfandel. Today the Zinfandel is the most widely planted wine grape in California.
In 1857, while visiting General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo at the General’s Lachrima Montis estate, Haraszthy was introduced to the Sonoma Valley. This valley especially appealed to him because its weather, topography and soil were so similar to his Hungarian homeland’s high quality vineyards.
In Sonoma, he established the Szeptaj Estate (Buena Vista). That Buena Vista Winery is today a state park and historical site.

In 1861, He was appointed to a California commission to improve agricultural methods and to collect vines and fruit tree stocks in Europe. During a European tour with his son, Arpad, he purchased, with his own money, 100,000 grapevines representing 1,400 varieties, along with small selected lots of planting stock for olives, almonds, pomegranates, oranges, lemons and chestnuts.
When he returned, Harper & Brothers, of New York, published Haraszthy’s report, “Grape Culture, Wines and Wine Making upon Agriculture and Horticulture. It remained the winemaking classic authority in the English language until well into the 20th century.
The Haraszthy family planted vineyards for European immigrant friends and wine growers, including Charles Krug, Emile Dreser and Jacob Grundlach.
In 1863, Agoston’s sons Attila and Arpad Haraszthy were married in a double ceremony to the twin daughters of General Vallejo.
Later, after one of his wine cellars containing vintages of two years was destroyed by fire, Haraszthy traveled to Nicaragua where he bought a sugar plantation. There, he wife contacted yellow fever and died.
Agoston Haraszthy died July 6, 1869, near his estate, Hacienda San Antonio, at Corinto, Nicaragua, while trying to cross a crocodile infested rive.. His family believed that he fell into a river while attempting to cross and was dragged away by an alligator. His body was never found.

(Alton Pryor has been a writer for magazines, newspapers, and wire services. He worked for United Press International in their Sacramento Bureau, handling both printed press as well as radio news. He traveled the state as a field editor for California Farmer Magazine for 27 years. He is now the author of 10 books, primarily on California and western history. His books can be seen at http://www.stagecoachpublishing.com. Readers can email him at stagecoach@surewest.net.)

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The career outlook for a horticulture career is favorable. They make on average $25-$30 thousand a year. They work to upgrade crop yield, quality, nutritional value, and plant’s resistance to diseases, insects, and environmental stresses.

What’s in Horticulture?

Horticulture differs from agriculture in a sense that it uses as smaller scale of cultivation and uses smaller plots of mixed crops rather than a large field of single crop and the cultivation of a wider variation of crops, which usually includes trees. The study of horticulture includes eight areas that are grouped into two broad sections – the ornamentals and the edibles.

How is it Green?

Arboriculture refers to the study and selection, planting care and removal of individual threes, shrubs and other perennial woody plants. Floriculture includes the production and marketing of floral crops. Landscape horticulture encompasses the production, marketing, and maintenance of landscaping plants. Olericulture is the production and marketing of vegetables, Pomology is the production and marketing of fruits and Viticulture is the production and marketing of grapes. Last is the Postharvest Physiology, which involves maintaining quality and preventing spoilage of horticultural crops.

Horticulture is being practiced in gardens, plant growth centers, and nurseries. Work in nurseries includes preparing seeds and cutting to growing fully mature plants. These are usually sold or transferred to ornamental gardens or market gardens.

People who are interested in horticulture can find work in industry, government or educational institutions as well as private collections. The can work as cropping systems engineer or be a wholesale or retail business manager, propagators and tissue culture specialist for fruits, vegetables, ornamentals and turf; crop inspectors, crop production advisers, extension specialist, plant breeders, researcher and also as teachers.

People with a green thumb and real concern for plants and the flora are the best candidate for this kind of career.

Educational and Training Requirements

A career in horticulture and gardening maybe complemented by a degree in botany, biology, entomology, genetics, garden design, physiology, and plant design. Plant sciences as well as horticulture courses includes study of plant materials, plant propagation, crop production, tissue culture, post-harvest handling, plant breeding, pollination management, crop nutrition, plant pathology, entomology and others. A masters or a doctoral degree many be required in some horticultural science.

GreenCareersGuide.com is the #1 green careers website on Google. We have the most comprehensive database of articles on green jobs. Whatever your stage of life, we have you covered. Green careers, green training, and green entrepreneurship articles are only a small part of our exhaustive green career site. There are tremendous upsides to having a green career.

http://www.GreenCareersGuide.com

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Gurney’s Seed and Nursery, and Henry Field’s Nursery also sold thousands of orders of fruit, nut, and shade trees, etc, like Stark Brother’s Nursery, but they likewise sold to a vast market of vegetable seed buyers a market, that in itself was enormously profitable. If these companies were removed from the American markets “Cui bono?” Who would benefit from this demise, and emerge to replace these giants of mail order success in past history? Would the new mail order replacement companies be owned and controlled by the Dutch office located in the Netherlands?

Google search results show that Foster-Gallagher shipped 17 million packages in the year 2000. The amount of income that was generated from consumers ordering and buying 17,000,000 packages is staggering, even for a liberal mind.

Perhaps, the most specific generator of income from the 21 mail order companies owned by Foster-Gallagher resulted from primarily flower bulb sales. The nationally famous bulb companies, Michigan Bulb Company, Springhill Nursery; Breck’s Bulb Company; New Holland Bulb Company; and the mysterious facilities located in the Netherlands collapsed, when the parent company, Foster-Gallagher, filed for bankruptcy on July 2, 20001. A national chaotic frenzy followed, when it was pronounced that all those people who had placed orders from Foster-Gallagher owned companies, and all those other customers expecting replacement orders the following season would not have their orders filled. The credibility of disappointed customers placing mail order sales was shattered by these reports of “the cold shoulder” being offered to those who had sunk their savings accounts and planting confidence into Foster-Gallagher companies.

Google search results showed that on September 2, 2001, Foster-Gallagher executives reported that the business collapsed as a result from negative media coverage and caused a precipitous drop off in business income leading to the catastrophic National bankruptcy, leaving a $100,000,000 debt liability to be sorted out in the Federal Bankruptcy Court in the State of Delaware and angry mail order customers who absorbed the bad news that their orders and payments received were undeliverable and noncollectable!

Many questions remain unanswered that point to the present year 2006, after the disintegration of many previously, American-owned businesses, 5 years after Foster-Gallagher disappeared. Have those American owned business, now gone, that represented millions and millions of dollars in sales of Agricultural seed, trees, and Dutch grown bulbs, been replaced by Dutch owned companies that control the horticultural sales that funnel American dollars to offshore moguls based in the Netherlands?

Can an imaginary scenario be presented that might reveal how such a traumatic financial shift could insipidly develop and with impunity change the course of American Agriculture? The might and power of American Agriculture has been legendary in years past, and it is appropriate to consider whether or not American Agriculture dominance is teetering into a progressive state of limbo that might eventually endanger National security.

Consider a complex situational possibility that focused hawkish observers might call “Agricultural Terrorism.” Amaryllis sales are an important bulb Dutch export to the United States as well as many other Dutch bulbs like tulips and daffodils. Could the Foster-Gallagher bankruptcy have developed as a result of the following discussion? The Dutch amaryllis growers produce their bulbs in the Netherlands greenhouses, and exported them to the United States during the fall. The several types of market niches for the Dutch bulb exporters are: florists, fund raisers, Dutch owned re-wholesalers, box-store bulb packagers, and American mail order companies. The Dutch commercial florist customers demand quality, true-to-name cultivars, and the florist grower rapidly plants the amaryllis flower bulbs, and he can confirm the integrity of the flower color in about 3-4 weeks, as soon as the amaryllis flowers are forced into bloom. Mail order American customers are very vulnerable to Dutch amaryllis errors, or to a possible deliberate unloading of diseased amaryllis bulbs or slow-selling surplus amaryllis cultivars. The victimized American mail order company may ship his so-called true-to-name amaryllis to thousands of customers; unknowing of the possible latent motives of the Dutch Bulb Company that may have indirectly victimized a trusting, unsuspecting, American customer. Several months may have elapsed before the American mail order company begins to hear his phones, ringing off the hook from unhappy mail order customers, who received the wrong color bulb, or who might have planted a diseased bulb, ultimately ending with death rot. To fulfill the mail order promise of refund or free replacement, the American company not only loses a customer and marketing credibility; but when he confronts the Dutch amaryllis bulb exporters and suppliers, he is told to look at the bottom of his purchase invoice that reveals there is no Dutch guarantee, so the American mail order bulb merchant gets stuck with insoluble negatives that eventually could lead to the closure of his business.

The lack of a credible Dutch guarantee on their products is obvious in the following excerpt at the bottom of a Dutch wholesale purchase order. The Dutch bulbs that were delivered to an American Customer who purchased approximately $20,000 worth of flower bulbs in 2005-2006 season…

“PLEASE NOTE: NO COMPLAINT ENTERTAINED UNLESS MADE WITHIN FIVE DAYS AFTER RECEIPT OF THE GOODS. We give no warranty, expressed or implied, as to description, quality, productiveness or any other matter of any seeds, bulbs or plants we send out nor will we be in any way responsible for the crop. QUALITY FLOWER BULB PRODUCTS”

Whether the American business closures resulted from the loss of his sales revenue, from a deluge of complaints filed angrily against the mail order company to United States governmental agencies. That accumulation of complaints could result in a revocation of a mail order business license, and that means the victims are two-fold; the American mail order amaryllis bulb company and the customer who did buy his product.

How then, could the Dutch amaryllis bulb company benefit,”Cui bono”, or conspire to benefit from the deliberate malicious act of mischief? The answer to this question becomes clear when the revelation is made that the Dutch exporter also owns a business interest in an American mail order competitor selling Amaryllis to the American bulb customer, who finally ended up as one more more mysterious, unexplained business failure. The dissatisfied mail order complainers might be redirected next year to buy their amaryllis from the Dutch export retail operation that in combination with all the other Dutch owned wholesale and retail operations.

Not only can a mail order company be deliberately stocked with an inventory of untrue-to-name bulb, but the American bulb merchant may, by misfortune receive amaryllis bulbs bulbs infected with the Red Blotch disease, Stagonospora curtisii, that seriously erupts with bright red spots on the amaryllis leaves, the flower stems, the flower petals, and the dormant amaryllis bulbs, both outside or inside the bulb. The red spots are small at first, and increase in size to form large, dark red blotches on tainted, dying leaves, infected bent flower stems, that eventually began to collapse inwards to progressively fatally rot the amaryllis bulb into a pile of malignant brown jelly. It has been possible recently to prove by the investigations of agricultural authorities that the amaryllis rot originated from the exporting Dutch grower; if the red spots originated from the lower cells of the dormant bulb center. The infected red blotch in a number of amaryllis bulbs would point to evidence that the bulbs were intentionally marketed by the Dutch exporters as diseased bulbs with malice apparent.

Another very serious disease is the amaryllis mosaic virus that can spread fast to infect amaryllis flower bulbs with streaks or on the leaves of yellow, reducing normal growth and flowering. Clemson University says “nothing one can do to eliminate mosaic (virus) from an infected plant” and the amaryllis bulbs should be destroyed.

The question remains unanswered: Have the Dutch bulb exporters gained financial control of American agriculture? The Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company reported sales of 306 billion dollars in 2005 and was the second most profitable corporation in the world with its largest revenue coming from the United States.

Patrick N. Malcolm, owner of TyTy Nursery, http://www.tytyga.com, has an M.S. degree in Botany and has hybridized crinum lily, canna lily, and other rare flower bulbs for over 34 years.

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How To Become A Horticulturist?

Many universities and colleges offer certificates in horticulture. A certificate makes a business operation more credible. To be a horticulturist, you need to be knowledgeable in Chemistry, Botany, soil types, written and oral communication, plant pests and diseases and business management. The courses provide information on health benefits, food safety, gardening-techniques and ecologically sound lawns.

Job Opportunities

Professional Horticulturists can work in different areas such as:

Production – Managing a landscape service, greenhouse, vegetable farm, orchard, flower or plant shop, garden center, nursery or processing firm.

Landscape Design, installation and maintenance – Designing and planting plans with shrubs, trees, ground cover, turf grass and herbaceous ornaments.

Marketing – Wholesale or retail sale of gardening supplies, seeds, processed or fresh vegetables, floral arrangements and house plants. You can manage the marketing for a government, private companies, chain stores or wholesale distributors.

Research – You can work as a researcher to improve the yield and quality of vegetables, fruits, flowers and ornamental plants and develop methods for storing, handling and marketing them. You can specialize in plant nutrition, plant breeding, plant growth regulation with chemicals and similar interesting areas of plant research.

Pest Management – After training, you can work with central and state regulatory agencies, processing corporations, large farm organizations, agricultural agents and even agricultural suppliers.

Industry services and growing Horticultural Crops – Trained Horticulturists are employed in Seed Firms, pesticide material manufacturing, manufacturing of fertilizers, freezing and canning companies and landscape or farm equipment management.

Inspection – Trainedhorticulturists are usually employed in government or private agencies as inspectors and to manage uniformity in the production and quality.

Communication – Written collateral for agricultural or gardening magazines, television and radio and newspapers can be a rewarding field too.

Job Of A Horticulturist

· Plant preparation for retail and wholesale nurseries.

· Specialized plant production.

· Develop and manage outdoor spaces like resorts, hotels and sports complexes.

· Work for the park departments under the local authorities.

· Administer large department stores or businesses associated with the agriculture industry.

Horticulturists often work with town planners, landscape architects, engineers, and environmental conservationists. The horticulturist works towards building a better and beautiful environment and a higher quality of life through improvement, beautification and conservation.

Horticultural scientists or people with a university degree in Horticulture work for various agricultural research institutes, where they conduct research on vegetables, fruits, flowers and the grape and wine preparations in different rainfall regions. They are also involved in the marketing of horticultural products and agricultural extensions.

Job Market For The Horticulturist

With the emergence of a number of environmental issues, the job market has expanded for fruit, vegetable and environmental horticulturists, as extension specialists, research workers, teachers, scientists and professors. Horticulturists are employed as marketing managers, production superintendents, inventory controllers, landscape maintenance specialists, buyers, landscape supervisors, bedding plant producers, education coordinators and research assistants.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions – Six Sigma Online – http://www.sixsigmaonline.org, offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

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Here’s a shallow example of HT at work in my superficial life: Many moons ago, I worked with the actor James Woods on a film shoot. Let’s just say he was “high maintenance.” I came home on Friday nights in tears, mumbling obscenities as I rehashed “another week at the office” to my kind, patient boyfriend. Saturday mornings, I couldn’t speak till I’d cleansed the demons. I would spend two hours sitting in my garden, alone, meticulously and fiercely pulling weeds, in a silent ethereal trance. Monday morning I’d be ready to face the egos again . . .

Last week I visited the wondrous garden at The Cedars Textile Art Center to see horticultural therapy at work, right here in Marin County. Since 1919, the Cedars has provided a special community for more than 2500 individuals with developmental disabilities. In 1981, the Cedars Textile Art Center was created by founder and Director Connie Pelissero. Her dream was to combine her interests in textiles and special education. With the help of longtime Co-Director, Denise Colwell, over 70 clients a day are provided with training and employment in textile weaving, organic gardening and animal husbandry on 21 spectacular rural acres.
And it all looks so organized, peaceful and healthy! (Nothing like a film set . . .)

I met with Amy Whelan, the Garden Coordinator/Queen Bee, who has been teaching and working at the garden for over sixteen years. She refers to the land as a “mini-garden of Eden.” When you first enter the Cedar’s garden, traveling along the winding path down the hillside, you know you have just crossed the threshold to a sacred place. Fruit trees, wild roses, hollyhocks, iris, lavender, penstemon and various tall, climbing beans and peas surround you. A painted sign reads “The Earth Laughs in Flowers.” Here new clients are taught how to make compost, grow seeds, water plants, weed, prune and nurture the earth. Many of these clients will go on to teach these same valuable skills to schoolchildren who come visit. The cycle of life is demonstrated here starting with compost, a seed, a flower, a wilted flower and back to the compost pile to begin again.

In the Cedars garden, clients of all ages ranging fro 20 to 80 yrs. old use horticultural therapy to promote healing and learning. Working in the garden provides a positive sense of wellbeing, problem solving, teaches new skills, social interaction and communication. Whelan sees the benefits from working in a garden first hand with her clients. “Everyone who enjoys gardening knows that working with plants fulfills basic human needs. Through horticultural therapy, you can facilitate these benefits with people on many levels.”

She explains the three main areas of horticultural therapy: social development, psychological and physical.

Social Development:

Gardening teaches new skills and vocabulary, helps people gain independence, helps them make new friends as they work cooperatively towards common goals, and increases attention span and concentration in easily distracted individuals.

Psychological:

Gardening meets nurturing need through taking care of living things (plants), encourages creativity, self-esteem and responsibility by project selection and design, and decreases stress, anger and aggressiveness.

Physical:

Gardeners enjoy activities as they increase strength and range of motion using fine and gross motor skills. They also have access to near limitless opportunities for year-round exercise and relaxation in serene garden settings.

Whelan adds, “In the spring we have many schools visit the garden. The children observe individuals with developmental disabilities teaching, working, planting and caring for a garden. There is an awareness of healthy eating and living. It’s fun, beautiful and outdoors!” Schoolchildren who visit may be taught by Todd Williams, a client who is supervising the greenhouse on the morning I visit. We bond immediately over the magic of seedlings. “I like to teach the children about planting seeds. I share their excitement with what may sprout. And I like their high energy!,” says Williams.

The schoolchildren also visit the friendly sheep and goats, and the beautiful Angora rabbits, whose cages sit on the worm composting bin below them! The Angora rabbits are groomed daily by the clients and the fur is used in weaving. The fruits and vegetables grown in the garden are used to serve a daily homemade lunch, created by the clients, to everyone at the Cedars.

Whelan adds, “Over the years at the Cedars garden, I have observed and heard clients say things about the garden such as: increased happiness, it’s relaxing, interesting, there’s always something to do, productive, you can always see something growing and it’s a place that they are proud of being a part of.”

You can be a part of it too! If you’d like to have your classroom visit The Cedars, or become a volunteer, contact the main office at 454-5310. Come on down to the Cedarchest in San Anselmo, at 603 San Anselmo Avenue to shop! There are gorgeous crafts (rugs, blankets, belts, napkins) the gifted weavers at the Cedars have created.

Raised in the asphalt jungle of New York City, Annie Spiegelman moved to the Bay Area over ten years ago and became a passionate environmentalist and Master Gardener. She is the author of two previous books on gardening (and life). Annie’s Garden Journal: Some Thoughts on Roses, Life, Weeds, and Men (Carol Publishing, 1996) was a selected Borders Books title by promising new writers and her second, Growing Seasons: Half-baked Garden Tips, Cheap Advice on Marriage and Questionable Theories on Motherhood was published in 2003 by Seal Press/Avalon Publishing Group. She is presently working on her third book entitled “The Dirt Diva’s Almanac.” Visit Annie at http://www.dirtdiva.com

And lastly, Does anyone have two alpacas to donate? Seriously, that’s what they’re looking for. If you know someone, have their people call my people at 453-5310.

Visit Annie at dirtdiva.com

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