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November 22, 1977 Around Adair with Ed Waggener The article below first appeared in the November 22, 1977, issue of the Adair County news. Topics included Sue Stivers in Louisville, the Loy Building, a trip to Pierce, in Green County, in search of exotic livestock, and an appreciation of Junior Walker and Jim McCullough. --Pen By Ed Waggener Mrs. Carter will be honored The First Lady of the United States, Rosalynn Carter, will speak to the Kentucky Home Economists Association in Louisville on March 30, 1977. And guess who is to introduce her? She had to be from Adair County, and she is. Sue Stivers, Adair County's Home Extension Agent, will do the honors. Loy Building sells Dr. M.C. Loy's clinic building at the corner of Greensburg and Monroe Streets in Columbia sold at auction on Saturday, November 19, 1977, for $30,100. Joe Dudley was the final bidder. Dudley was bidding for Dr. James Salato, who will reportedly move his offices to the building from the second floor of the Hill Building on the Square in Columbia. Col. Curtis Wilson and Col. Jessie Loy of Central Kentucky Realty handled the sale. Of all things, a llama I read in the Edmonton Herald-News that Metcalfe County had a real, live llama. The story was written by my favorite mother-in-law, Geniece Marcum. There was a lot of unseeming bragging in the story, about how Metcalfe County had it over other counties, specifically Adair, because of their llama. When I first heard of the story, I immediately assumed that the naive Metcalfe Countians had been taken in by a wily booger who had done a llama conversion on a goat or an Adair County Holstein. Followed directions; it wasn't there Sunday, I followed Mrs. Marcum's directions to Beechville, where the llama was supposed to have been residing, and saw nothing nigher to looking like a llama than a Jersey cow. Disappointedly, we drove to Sulphur Well to confront Mrs. Marcum with the facts as we had seen them: No llama in Beechville. "Of course not," she said, "the llama has been moved to Pierce, in Green County. You go through Crail Hope and Pierce is on toward Greensburg. You can't miss it." The country is circular There is a problem for the uninitiated driving in the land of Hart, Green, and Metcalfe County. We passed Center, then Shady Grove, then Crail Hope. Just east of Crail Hope, the road forks. I took a left. We drove for three days Sunday afternoon, using intuition reckoning to guide us, without reaching Pierce. Finally, we came to a recognizable landmark: Shady Grove Store. We had made a full circle. Then, it was back through Crail Hope again, and this time we took the right hand fork, across the new bridge at Green River and smack dab into Pierce. Wasn't hard to find the llama I asked for directions to the llama's home at Block City in Pierce. Everybody had heard of him. We were told the way. (From Columbia, the road to the llama's house is to go to Pierce, turn right before you reach Davis' store, follow the blacktop to the first fork--the blacktop goes left, you go right. And the llama is located down that gravel road.) Jim McCullough is the owner The llama was grazing out in the pasture at the place, which is located at the end of the gravel road. In the pasture beside the barn above the house, a travel trailer is anchored which reads simply, "Llamisary." I knocked at the door of the house and finally raised the owner of the llama ranch. A friendly, bearded red-headed Hoosier, late of Oregon, greeted me. He is Jim McCullough. He said that the red and white llama he now has will soon be joined by several more, which he will purchase from a llama breeder in Florida. The llama is a native of the high Andes countries, Chile and Peru, he said. He'll raise them for their wool. The wool of the llama is unusually soft. A pound of it, he says, sells for $32. The American breed llamas cost $3,000 a pair, he said, and the gestation period for a llama is 11-12 months, so buying is expensive and breeding is slow. Farms 60 acres McCullough and his wife and five children have 60 acres of the scenic, but rugged Green County farmland. He's originally from Bedford, Indiana, and most recently tried his luck at produce gardening in Oregon. "I just wish I had known how great it is in Kentucky first," he said, "and I would never have gone to Oregon." Llamas will not be the primary source of income on the farm. He'll also raise the traditional Kentucky cash crop of tobacco, and he'll maintain a herd of all-purpose goats. "We use them for everything," he said. "We eat them, use them to clear land, and get their milks, to drink, sell and make cheese. Llamas will draw customers "He'll raise a produce garden, much as he did in Oregon. He'll have traditional truck produce, plus a specialty item he learned to grow in Oregon: garlic. Garlic culture is a specialty crop which requires sophisticated knowledge, McCullough said, but it was a good crop for him in Oregon. He hopes the llamas will draw customers for his produce to the farm. One place Adair County ain't first I guess that my trip only proved two things: My mother-in-law was right, and, Adair County ain't first in llama production and there doesn't seem much chance of catching Green County, although we are now up with Metcalfe County, the recent number one Kentucky llama county (we're not counting zoo llamas) in what is probably a dead 119-county tie for second place. Harris ought to know about it Agriculture Commissioner Tom Harris ought to make note of the llama production in Green County. He might be able to work out a deal where the same boat which takes Junior Walker's jacks and jennets to central America can take the Panama Canal and run down to Chile and Peru to bring back a load of llamas to Green County-or back to Junior Walker's if he should get into it. McCullough, Walker kind of people I like. Both McCullough and Junior Walker are the kind of people I really like. To borrow a term from Janice Holt Giles, they are both "all-out" people. What they do, they do with a great deal of enthusiasm. Then too, both of them do what they want to do. I always imagined that even before jacks and jennets became popular, Junior Walker would have raised them regardless of their profitability. I know he's a man to have been admired all his life. Yet he is more of a hero today. Because he is making a fine income doing what he wants to do. I'd be in favor of holding a Junior Walker Day in Columbia - to celebrate the concept of the man who marches to the beat of his own drum, yet attains success in his own time, even measured by this world's standards. This story was posted on 2021-01-31 10:18:00
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More articles from topic Around Adair with Ed Waggener:
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