It’s almost like there’s a script, a list of exact lines shared with the rest of the world, but not with me.
Every. Single. Time. I say I have llamas.
“Oh…Aren’t they mean?” Continue reading “But aren’t llamas mean???”
I was talking with my friend in Maine the other night before evening chores.
“I don’t wanna go outside!” I whined. We whine together a lot. If we lived closer, we’d wine together a lot…and that would be better. “I checked, Lauren. It’s been consistently colder here than at your place. Which seems completely unfair given that you’re basically Canadian!”
Lauren laughed, but acknowledged that it’s true. They live far enough north that she could damn near apply for dual citizenship. I, however, live in the middle ground of the country. Illinois. Home of Chicago at one end and cornfields at the other. Despite the expectations that it’s more temperate here, we get nearly arctic colds and southern warms. (Temperate my ass…110 heat index in Summers and -20+ windchill in the winter.) Last week, my little corner of creation went through a cold snap. It was colder here than in Bangor, ME. Actually, as a matter of fact, it was colder here than in Nome, AK.
And it was a problem. Continue reading “Dangerous Cold and a Full Barn”
Happy New Year Everyone!
January 1st of 2016 surprised me with a nearly perfect blue sky. Having spent weeks overwhelmed by my Season of Gray, the blue sky was the perfect antidote to my melancholy, and, in my own humble opinion, barn chores under the blue sky were the perfect was to start the new year.
First thing, I wandered out to one of the back pasture to check on a tree fall that one of my neighbors reported to me. Their tree; our fence.
It pretty much destroyed that section of fence, but it’s so big that no one is going anywhere over, around, or through it. I don’t have to worry for a while. (I told Jeremiah that we should chainsaw it in interesting ways and leave it as fence…easier than hauling it out.)
Jeremiah pulled the covers back and kissed me goodbye at about 7:30. I was still in bed, unmotivated to get up and start my Sunday.
“I put fly masks on the horses and scrubbed the trough. The stalls are clean, and the water buckets are filled. The chickens are fed. The barn cats are let out. And don’t let our cats convince you to give them second breakfast” [for those of you who haven’t met them, our house cats are basically hobbits…] “because I just fed them too.”
I rolled over to say thank you when a rooster crowed in the distance, as though he knew he’d been left out.
“Oh, right,” Jeremiah continued, “I let the chickens out too.”
Jeremiah is gone a lot for work, especially lately, but when he has time, he does a sweep of the barn before leaving so that I don’t have to worry about such things immediately. He will be gone for four days, another trip east. This one is to outfit his shoeing trailer and ride with a fellow farrier for a few days. The last trip was for three clinics. The next will be for a clinic and a number of distant consult cases and closer client stops. While he’s gone I’m here with the creatures, and the property, and my job. Everyday looks like sixty-two creatures, two barns (eight stalls), one very big chicken coop, and that’s just before I go to work…
Usually, it’s fine. I love this place and these creatures, and, I’ve said it before, there is a certain zen to cleaning stalls that I have yet to find anywhere else except maybe a yoga studio. (Like yoga! But with manure!!!)
But, if I’m telling the truth, the yoke of this place is heavy, heavier to carry alone. And there is always uncertainty in it. The skid steer is broken right now. It needs five-hundred dollars worth of repairs. And we will get it done. We always do. But my car needs tires too, and the house needs a new roof desperately. And the propane bill is coming due…and, and, and… Continue reading “I can do hard things.”
A post by a fellow blogger reminded me of the days when we used to use the llamas as therapy animals. I wrote about it a long time ago and posted it when I had just a handful of followers. Here it is again. I hope you enjoy.
Some of you have expressed interest in learning about the critters, so I decided to start with the one who, for me, really started all of this crazy. Minnett Mann, my first gelding, is, and always has been, my sweet boy. I wrote the following during graduate school, about five years ago.
Just a Minnett
I’ve never been good at goodbyes, and, in August of 2005, when I stood at the gate of the Illinois State Fair cattle ring, waiting to show my favorite llama for what was supposed to be the last time, it felt far too much like a goodbye. He was four, considered an “adult male,” and was misbehaving. I was nineteen, barely an adult myself, and trying very hard not to cry. I knew that I would never walk into the show ring with Minnett again. I was going away for three months, and he would…
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The scrap of metal against cedar shingles and the crashing sound the shingles made as they hit the ground outside of my living room told me that Jeremiah was still hard at work on the roof. He had been stripping that section for most of the day, an effort to get a watertight tarp over the leaking part before our near-week of rain began on Monday.
I didn’t want to bother him for evening chores, so I pulled a sweatshirt over my tank top and wandered out to the barn on my own to fill hay nets and otherwise attend to things. I walked into one of the stalls on the young side of the barn and untied a nearly empty net. The barn was mostly vacant, but First Class, a younger, white gelding, stood alone in the next stall munching hay.
First Class was born at the ranch. He was a cute as a button as a cria. (Cria, by the way, is the appropriate name for a baby llama or alpaca.) He used to be one of our most trustworthy, easy llamas. When he was younger, he accompanied us to nursing homes and preschools. He seemed to really enjoy that job, staying calm when other animals would have been thoroughly freaked.
He went to a new home when he was an adult. A very nice lady with a couple of goats and sheep bought him as a herd guard. She was new to llamas, but I worked with her myself for well over a month, teaching her to handle him properly. They were getting along splendidly.
Then she left for vacation.
When she came home, he was like a completely different animal. He ran away from everyone. He kicked. He spit. Suddenly, this gelding, who had been so good, was acting like an abuse or neglect case. It was as though he had been chased or threatened, and I wondered if teenagers (or someone) had spotted him from the road and slipped into his pen “to pet a llama” and that things had devolved from there. (And yes, when you have livestock, these are the sort of scenarios that you have to worry about…) All of that is really just supposition, but I was, and am, nearly certain that some kind of traumatic event occurred while she was gone. We tried to fix it, but he was scared or angry and she was timid and afraid. The combination made my efforts with them completely fruitless.
Eventually, once it became apparent that his behavior (fear, anger, whatever) was beyond his owner’s capabilities, L did what many breeders refuse to do and offered to take him back. He’s gotten somewhat better since then, but he still hates to be handled. I have my suspicions that with a lot of daily work he might be able to move past whatever hang up he has. At this point, I don’t have that much time to spare, so he is largely living the life of a lawn ornament. We really only mess with him when we have good reason.
Unfortunately, it was getting to be one of those times.
I’ve known for a while that his toenails desperately needed trimmed. (What law of the universe is it that ensures that the animals who like being handled the least end up needing it most often?) They were over long and starting to curl a bit. Typically, we keep the llama toenails trimmed regularly, and they never look like that, but First Class has a talent for turning a simple chore that should be done in roughly three minutes into a three ring circus.
I’ll just say that has a way of making us a bit lax getting his toes done.
But I was there, and he was there, so I shut the stall door, haltered him, and grabbed my trimmers from the feed room.
Usually, my very talented farrier husband does the toenail trimming around here, but, unlike the horses’ hooves that I wouldn’t dare touch, I am capable of trimming the llamas and alpacas. He quicker than me, and he tends to be able to trim shorter than I am able–I use hand shears; he uses nippers–but I’ve been doing that particular farm chore since well before he and I met.
Working as quickly as I could, I was able to trim three feet before First Class really started to get pissed. But at that point, he was kicking at me and spitting a warning in the air. That last foot wasn’t going to happen the way things were going.
I left him in the stall (to chill a bit) and wandered down to the back of the house where Jeremiah was working on the roof, asking him to give First Class a shot to calm him down a bit. He obliged, and I waited. In fact, I trimmed and wormed three other llamas (who wandered in to check on dinner) waiting for the shot to kick in.
Except it never did. Sometimes, with difficult llamas, their adrenaline and sheer force of will can trump lower level sedatives. I should have known First Class would pull off that trick.
But he was still there, and we were still there, and the damn toenails were still there with the very real capability of making him lame if we waited too long to trim them.
So I held his head, and Jeremiah pulled out his nippers. First Class spit. He tried to kick Jeremiah in the head. He laid down in the middle of the process, tucking his legs squarely underneath him. Basically, this llama pulled out every trick in the book to prevent us from completely a very basic task. When the llamas and alpacas stand as they should, it’s a task that literally takes two minutes. He was going on closer to twenty or thirty.
…
By the time we finished trimming First Class, everyone involved was upset on some level. Jeremiah was irritated. First Class was still mad. I was emotionally exhausted and smelled faintly of llama spit. And it’s strange, because I was simultaneously upset with the adult gelding in front of me whose behavior was so antagonistic and sad for the cria I knew who had had such potential. And I wished I understood more what had happened to turn the one into the other, and I wondered if the cause mattered when either way I was left to deal with the effect.
But honestly, somewhere along the line, his issue boils down to the same issue that so many rescues have: at some point, a human failed him.
…
I have a friend halfway across the country dealing with the same issue with a horse she used to own. The mare had been sold young. She met her again years later. In the meantime, there had been trauma. (In the case of this mare, likely repeated and intentional trauma.) My friend bought the mare back, paying more than the animal was worth, to save her. For quite some time, she deemed the mare so dangerous that she wouldn’t allow anyone else to even pet her for fear that she might hurt them. (Of course, horses are capable of being far more dangerous than even the worst llama; my friend’s actions take far more bravery than mine, which mostly just require patience.)
…
In the days since the toenail incidents, something occurred to me: For all the drama that First Class still provides, a few years ago, it was worse.
Those first three toenails I managed on my own? That never would have happened. A few years ago, he had to be completely knocked out by the vet to be shorn and have his toenails trimmed.
And I guess I had hope.
Whatever happened to him, I think maybe it’s slowly working its way out of his system. Granted, it won’t happen quickly, and I have no doubt he will spend several more years making things more difficult than necessary, but I’m beginning to think he’ll come back around again.
…
My friend’s mare is slowly coming around again as well. We both occasionally see flashes of the animal we used to know, reminding us why we keep trucking along. For both of us, for both of the critters, there’s a solid chance we’re looking at a long road, but, now that I think about it, sometimes long roads are the path to the very best of destinations.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I present to you, my husband.
I left for Costa Rica, and my husband went on quests and turned himself into a Legolas (yum) /Gandalf (ummm….) hybrid for the week. And by quests, I mean taking care of the farm and constructing things (like exceptionally apt signs), and by Legolas/Gandalf hybrid, I mean he did so while carrying a quiver and wearing a wizard’s hat.
(Interesting side note: He took this photo by himself using his skid steer as a tripod.)
This photo pretty much perfectly sums up my life. Here on the ranch, we live at the intersection of adult responsibilities and utter nonsense.
Just yesterday, someone asked me when I possibly find time to “just relax.” He was astounded that we both work outside jobs while renovating the house(s) and running the farm. I sort of laughed because that question has a different answer depending on the day.
On the one hand, sometimes it gets to be a lot, and I really question why I’m not the sort of person who goes to the spa or travels extensively, instead of the sort of person whose horses eat all my spare money in the form of hay…
On the other hand, there is a sort of Zen that comes from cleaning stalls, or grooming horses, or walking my fields. And very little gives me as much satisfaction as a good training session with one of my critters, or watching the flowers that I plant bloom, or making breakfast with eggs I collected from my own chicken coop the day before.
I mean, really, does life get any better than watching a chicken ride a llama???
(The llama was less amused than we were…He was very polite to her, but Jeremiah said it was clear he preferred his butt to be chickenless.)
…
These days, things are greening up, and we are starting to shift focus to a whole new sort of work. Fences need mending. Our farm road is in need of repair. The gardens need weeding. Shearing is just around the corner for the llamas and alpacas. New chicks are on order to come in a few weeks. (Sadly, I’ve lost a few chickens to predators this week…but that’s a different post.) Horses will be starting back under saddle soon. And hopefully the ponies will start work towards their eventual jobs as therapy animals this year. There is so much to do, and we seldom check anything off our to-dos without adding more. But this place and this work is my “relax.”
Come to think of it though, I wouldn’t say no to a nice massage to wind down from “relaxing”…
This is Edie. When she was rescued by Southeast Llama Rescue, she was already older, into her teens. Her life had not been easy. She wasn’t treated well until her first rescuer brought her home. She originally came to Eagle Ridge from another rescuer who was having a hard time keeping weight on her. L fell in love with her, and she found her forever home on this property, first with L and her husband, then with Jeremiah and I. Every rescuer along her path fell in love with her. I fell in love with her.
She had a unique presence on the ranch. Always calm and composed, she would observe us as we went about our duties. She was unexpectedly sweet and seemed to understand that she had been saved. She enjoyed every bit of her life after rescue, first with her rescuer, then with L, then with me.
Jeremiah, who has a heck of a time with the llamas’ names, nicknamed her unicorn.
About a week ago, Edie “went down.” First, we noticed that she started tripping, then falling, then, finally, she couldn’t stand up on her own. We never had a vet properly diagnose why this happens, but we often find that a llama will lay down and be unable to stand again just before they pass. As long as they seem comfortable, we will let nature take it’s course. If they are in pain, we will call for euthanasia.
Edie went down about a week ago. She was still happy, and we were hoping for the best. She enjoyed petting and scritches. She got WAY excited when grain time came. She was calm and comfortable. On rare occasions, llamas who go down can get up again. Edie did not.
We had her on pain killer, just in case, but I was hoping that she would pass naturally or stand up. But she didn’t. Two days ago, when she didn’t want grain, I knew it was time to help her along. The number one rule of keeping animals is that you NEVER, EVER let them suffer. She was ready to go, but her body was lingering.
I put a call in to the vet.
The office knew about Edie, that she had been down, that we were hoping not to, but that we might need the doc to come out and euthanize her sometime soon. As a rule, if something is going on at the farm that might require off hours farm visits, I let them know.
I spoke with the desk staff first–they are fantastic people–and they put me on hold to check with the vet. I told them it wasn’t urgent; I could keep her comfortable until he had an opening. I asked that he come out sometime that day or the next.
When the desk staff came back on the phone, she told me to bring Edie to them.
Obviously, I thought, they don’t understand.
“Well, she can’t walk. She’s been lying down.” (And, sidenote, if she could walk around and load into a trailer comfortably under her own power, I can’t imagine I’d be euthanizing her.)
“Oh, she’s not walking? Let us talk to doc, and we’ll get back to you.”
We hung up, and I was satisfied that I would get a call soon.
Except I didn’t get a call. A few hours later, I called back.
When the new desk staffer answered the call and realized who I was, she told me that the plan was for us to bring Edie to them. They would be cremating her there anyway, so that would be easiest.
I reiterated that she couldn’t walk. The staffer passed the phone to the vet. They still didn’t get it, I thought.
“Cherity? Just drag her on in here.”
“I can’t. She can’t walk. And she definitely can’t load into a trailer.”
“She doesn’t have to walk. Just drag her out.”
And that was when I understood that he knew exactly what he was asking.
I was calling about an animal I loved. I was asking for help to give her a dignified end. I wanted to end her pain.
He wanted it to be convenient for him.
“I can’t do that. She’ll be terrified.”
In my head, I couldn’t help but picture how his request would unfold. She’d be sitting comfortably in her stall, still alert. We would have to come in and drag her out of the stall onto the concrete. She would try to stand, but wouldn’t be able to. She wouldn’t understand what we were doing. She wouldn’t understand why her people were hurting her, why her old knees were being scraped against the ground. She wouldn’t understand why she was being pulled onto a child’s sled and being drug out of the barn and away from her friends. We would clumsily try and lift 300 pounds of scared llama into our trailer, and once that trauma was over, she would ride alone in the back of a trailer wondering where she was going and why she was alone. And she would hum and cry. And the safe place she finally found in her old age wouldn’t be safe. And then an unfamiliar person would come at her with a needle…
No. A million times no.
The vet was still trying to convince me to drag her in. I told him three or four times that she would be terrified. He tried to convince me the logistics wouldn’t be that problematic. I tried to explain to him that the logistics weren’t the issue. I would not put her through all of that.
Then he got pissy with me. I kept saying that she’d be terrified, that it would be kinder to let her pass naturally than to do “drag her.” I kept trying to get off the phone, and he spoke over me. Finally, saying I needed to talk to L and Jeremiah, I basically hung up.
I was nearly in tears by the time the conversation ended. I have known this man since I was fourteen. We have occasionally butted heads over animal care, but I never expected him to try and bully me like this.
I briefly spoke to Jeremiah before calling L. He and I agreed that a bullet would be far kinder than his plan, that his way had nothing to do with her comfort and everything to do with his convenience and unwillingness to make a ten minute drive to our ranch.
For a moment I was concerned that I was overreacting. Perhaps this had been done before, but recounting the conversation to L, I was relieved to find that she was as horrified as me. I asked if I could call a different vet—I loved Edie but she was still L’s llama so she has the final say—and she told me to call whoever I needed.
I had Jeremiah call our horse vet, a man who we only switched to for the horses after the regular vet blew off a major emergency when our horse needed nearly two feet of stitches down his side after catching himself on a gate…the normal vet wouldn’t answer his phone for over two hours.
Our horse vet answered his phone right away, despite the fact that he was off for the day, and was out to put her down just a few hours later. He was kind with her, even diagnosing what caused her to go down in the first place (right-side heart failure). Her condition (which causes the heart to pump much less) meant that she required more sedative, which he was prepared for and administered without comment. She passed easily, sweet as ever, still calm and dignified. And I cried, but not much. Her end was peaceful and easy and that makes it better.
The next day, Jeremiah brought her to our other vet, because they always cremate L’s animals for her.
The vet met him in the lobby, yelling.
“You get out of here, and take her with you. She’s your problem now. I’m not touching any animal you had another vet work on.”
So, Jeremiah left. We called the kind vet who put Edie down for us, informing him that he could have the farm account if he were willing to take on the llamas, and asking him if he knew of anywhere that will cremate a large animal. They did, and we drove Edie about an hour away to a very nice man who cremates companion animals. He was kind and respectful, inquiring about her name and gently removing her body from our truck.
I’m still a little in shock that a near 20 year working relationship can go so quickly south so fast, but a little like ripping off a bandaid, I’m thankful it’s over.
Once I thought about it, he was never easy to work with. On the rare occasions that we had to work with another vet, for example when his office was closed, or he was on vacation, or when he wasn’t willing to provide a service (such as giving us an oral sedative so we could catch a feral barn cat without getting attacked) he got angry. Even if he was gone, even if we tried him first. He felt as though we owed him our unfailing loyalty, but we didn’t. Mind, we stuck with him a long time out of loyalty, even when it became clear the loyalty wasn’t expected to go both ways. But, in the end, my loyalty is to my animals first and foremost. My obligation is, and always will be, to them.
The sky is blue fading black. Snow blankets the ground. Not deep snow, but enough to cover the mud and the muck and the browned out remnants of fall and summer. It’s unmolested, still a perfect shimmering white reflecting the brightest stars, the ones that manage to shine out between the wispy clouds. The light of the moon is mirrored by the snow covered earth, giving the entire outdoors an other-earthly feel. It’s stunning beyond the ability of pictures to capture.
… And it’s so damn cold your boogers will freeze right on your face.
Weather in the Midwest is notoriously unstable. Lately, we’ve had swings of 40 degrees or so several times a week. Most of the animals are handling it fairly well, but the older among them are having some difficultly with the extremes. Couple that with a string of bad luck, and it’s been a weird couple of weeks seemingly living in reaction to the realities of the ranch.
Since just before Christmas, I’ve had three sick llamas (two with infections and one with an upset tummy), one lame llama (who stood up when her foot was asleep and pulled a muscle), two lame horses (stone bruising due to the quick deep freeze), two lame cats, a lacerated dog requiring stitches, and an injured husband. I just came inside from the barn a few moments ago, sick myself with a nasty cough, after dealing with a llama who somehow managed to choke on crumbled grain…(Don’t ask; I have no idea.)
It was while I was walking toward the barn, mostly preoccupied with helping the choking animal Jeremiah had called to report, that I noticed the wild and untamable winter beauty of the place. It was on the way back from the other barn, with thirty mile an hour winds and a temperature of seven degrees, that I realized, pretty or not, the cold will cut through you like a knife and freeze exposed skin with a chill that somehow burns. (And your boogers, as mentioned, it will also freeze your boogers.)
This ranch is a lot like the cold, beautiful and harsh, sometimes in almost equal measure.
Llamas are usually a pretty hearty bunch, but our herd is aging. Nearly all of them are north of ten years old; several are flirting with twenty. In the past couple of weeks, mostly right around the holidays, we’ve had three vet visits to deal with the issues of various critters (one cat, one dog, one llama).
We sometimes jokingly refer to the ranch as the llama nursing home. It’s one of those jokes that’s only funny because it’s true. This summer, we had a bout of strange behavior that led both Jeremiah and I to believe that several animals were heading downhill, that they wouldn’t be with us much longer. We watched them closely and changed their diet. We put in a superbly expensive water filtration system (that eliminated the heavy metals that were disturbingly prevalent in the well). And they bounced back, but we continue to watch.
I don’t think it’s the trials themselves that make ranch life harsh, or the work. I am no stranger to hard work, nor is my husband. I think it’s the knowledge that whatever you do, out here you will eventually lose the fight. After all, as often as not, the fight is against time itself.
It’s a common saying amongst ranch people: “If you’re gunna have livestock, you’re gunna have deadstock.” My cousin and uncle who run a dairy farm and have lost far too many calves this year have muttered that adage the same way I do when one of our critters gets sick, the way I did last year when we lost two alpacas to the cold and the damp. I’ve been saying it since I was fourteen years old.
But the saying is just a saying when you watch animals you care about get sick. Last week, the three sick llamas were three of my favorites. Even though I know I will lose animals, that these creatures won’t be around forever, I was ready to raze hell for those three. Fortunately, all but one has fully recovered, and I think the last will be all better in a few days. Still, for a little while there, I felt like Molly Weasley taking on Bellatrix Lastrange in the last Harry Potter book, screaming “Not my daughter, you bitch!” Except in my case I wasn’t facing a Death Eater, just time and illness, screaming “Not my pets, you bitch!”
I know for a lot of you it probably seems strange to be so attached to such creatures; even I would have found myself less upset by everything if it had only been one, but three of my favorite animals in as many days was rough even by my standards.
However, for now, all is well. The llamas and alpacas and ponies are tucked in snug in their stalls with blankets and heat lamps as necessary. The barn doors and stall doors are shut tight against the wind and the chill. They have more hay to munch than they probably need for the night. The chickens are likewise warm in their coop, the barn cats in their tack room, even the feral kitty is tucked into the hayloft. The big horses in the back field are fluffed up with their winter coats (all four of them resembling equine Yetis). Jeremiah and I are in the house with the house pets, the dogs curled up in front of the hearth. Most everyone is well, or on the way to being well.
I know that this place with always have the bitter mixed with the sweet, that it will likely always be beautiful and harsh in equal measure, but I also know that it’s worth it. The land is worth it, the house is worth it, and, more than anything else, the animals are worth every bit of heartbreak that I will ever feel on their behalf.
So it is with that thought that I look forward, into next year, into the next stage of things.
In a place like this, in a life like mine, you must learn to take the bad with the good. But guys? There is so much good to go around.
The snow falling outside my office window in the Heights probably means many things to many people. For me, it’s a gently falling reminder that old man winter beat us back to the ranch. We still aren’t moved back out there.
Just a few days ago, temperatures hovered between 55-60 degrees in our little corner of the planet. Now we’re in the 20s, complete with two days of snow. Illinois is like that, almost specializing in drastic weather changes that come in the night.
For the past few weeks, we’ve been expecting the cold. Our winter supply of hay–minus one flatbed load that we still need to pick up–is safely tucked away, either in barns or under tarps. Our grain room, likewise, is nearly full.
And, yet, the cold hit yesterday, and I found myself running around like mad trying to tie up loose ends.
I ran from store to store. At the first, I picked up a heated base for my chicken water, a sinking heater for my horse trough (the one from last year is toast), and cracked corn.
Then to another store for winter gloves that stand a chance against ranch life.
Back at the ranch, I noticed a shivering alpaca, just one, so I dug the winter coats out of the feed room
Eventually, several of our animals will be in coats, but I prefer to wait to put them on until they act cold. The more they regulate their own temperatures without help, the better.
We also dug out heat lamps, and, before leaving for the night, we shut our old men into their stall with their very own heat lamp.
Today, we will head out again, buying posts at Lowe’s for a pony shelter that needs to go in yesterday and winter clothes for Jeremiah. (Do you believe he went through all of last winter without a heavy winter coat? Said that if he bought one, winter won.)
And so begins another season out at the ranch. Hopefully, the big snows hold off for just a bit longer, and we can get moved back out before the roads get icy. We shall see.
Also, since I’m new at this one, does anyone want to share some friendly advice for keeping chickens nice and cozy? I have two that have bald(ish) backs from getting picked on, and I’m afraid of frostbite.
Almost Farmgirl 