Sad Of Spirit

There’s a new S.O.S. for you – Sad Of Spirit.  I’m sending out that S.O.S. right now, cause that’s how I feel.

I know there are bigger griefs out there.  Losing a friend, a family member – any people we’re attached to.

But we get attached to our animals too.  My Lady Llama lost her mother while still quite young, and I became her surrogate mama.  I was so looking forward to seeing her being a mama.

Instead, I spent the day digging a grave for her baby.

Most of the time we compost animals.  That sounds terrible to some people, but it’s really not much different than the system they have in New Orleans, where bodies are usually placed inside the walls of the above ground tombs. Because of the hot, subtropical climate, the tomb then effectively becomes an oven, and the high heat causes the body to decompose rapidly in a process that has been compared to a slow cremation. Within about a year, only bones are left.

Proper composting works pretty much the same way. No smell, just an above ground burial with quick decomposition to bones.

Even though that’s the usual procedure here, and I have done it before with animals I love, somehow I just couldn’t do it this time. I wanted a little grave site where I could plant a rosebush or some other flowering plant on top.

But roses need sunshine. We have a lot of trees, and most of the sunny spaces are garden or pasture. Tree roots are another problem. Springs and a high water table are yet another.  I tried 3 or 4 different places before I finally found a suitable place and kept digging.

Appropriately enough, it was raining when I started. That fit my mood pretty well, but it makes it really hard digging a hole in wet clay.  It took a mighty long time to dig a hole a couple feet deep and long, and maybe a foot wide.

A very long time.

I stopped, rested, and started again.  With a shovel and a post-hole digger, I slowly made the hole bigger and bigger.  Digging is the kind of physical activity that really aggravates my chronic pain.  I’ll pay for it the next couple of days, but for today, digging a grave was my project. I didn’t get much else done but essential critter chores.

When The Farmer got home from work, he helped me put the little llama baby in the grave, and covered her up for me.  Later, after the dirt has settled some, I’ll find a nice plant to put there.

That little cria was 25 pounds of black haired cuteness that never drew breath.  Long neck, sweet little head, long eyelashes, long legs.  A doll baby that never lived.

Yep, definitely S.O.S.

My Dream Died Tonight

It’s a dark, dark day here.

And yeah, I know these things happen, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

Okay, so in years past spring meant LOTS of births around here.  We’ve had years with maybe 30 lambs and a dozen or so goat kids.  But with my chronic pain problems and fibromyalgia, I just couldn’t keep up.  As much as I loved all the little babies, it got to be too much for me to handle.

We sold the breeding stock and my dream of a first class flock of Shetland sheep and herd of cashmere goats, and instead became a retirement home for just a handful of old ewes and doe goats that didn’t need to be bred any more.  All the rams and buck goats gone.  No more babies.

Except I still had a dream. 

You see, we have the sweetest little llama.  She’s on the petite side, and I always thought she’d have the cutest crias.   So even though we phased out raising other 4-legged babies, I really, REALLY wanted to have at least one little cria.  So we bought a male llama.

Now, according to gestation charts, and using the time I saw our llamas breed, we should have had a cria about April 1st.

Obviously, it’s long past April 1st.  I’d about decided our llama was just fat.  I’d been feeding her for two, and it just made her fat sort of deal.

Well, I was wrong.

When we went out to do chores this evening, she was laying down and didn’t move when The Farmer got close.  Most unusual.  So I thought, “Could it be?”

Yep, she was in labor.  Just a bit of the amniotic sac sticking out, with a little dark something in there.  I figured a foot.

I figured wrong.

Upon closer inspection, I thought it was either a tail or an ear.  I got a pair of gloves and felt it, and pushed my fingers inside to see what I could feel. 

NO feet.  Pretty sure that’s an ear, and I’m feeling the side of the head.

NOT good.

But the amniotic sac hadn’t broken, so I figured the cria should still be getting oxygen through the umbilical cord.  We’ve waited a long time for this baby though, and the presentation was way off.   I mean, there wasn’t even a picture in the books of such a presentation!

So I called the vet.  He was sewing up a horse and said he’d be here as soon as he could.  I set to work making sure there were lights and nice hay-strewn shed floors and anything else I could think of we might need.  Including two cameras to be sure I could record this joyous occasion.  Our first cria!

The books I have talk about how easy llamas birth.  In fact, one went so far as to say, “Llama births are easier and more trouble-free than births of any other livestock species.”

Not this time. 

The vet pushed the head back, and rotated things around and got the front feet out.  He tried to pull the baby out.  It wasn’t working.

He ended up putting chains on both legs and pulling the baby out.  It took several tries and a lot of hard work.  Finally he got the little one out and I asked if it was okay.  He informed me it had been dead for some time.

There went my dream.  It literally died.

One very cute, black little girl cria.  Stillborn.

My poor little llama lady was so tired, she barely moved through all this.  She got oxytocin and antibiotic shots.  The vet thinks she’ll be fine.  I sure hope so.

But right now… I’m feeling pretty sorry for both of us.

Tomorrow I have to bury my dream.  I know I’ll water that little grave with a whole lot of tears.

It’s not easy when a dream dies.

Sneaky Llama

It’s always been a problem keeping the goats away from young vegetation.  They love to munch up on my honeysuckle vines –

… and about any other young growth, even on trees.  I can’t tell you how many trees they stripped of leaves, and worse, girdled the bark and made the tree die.  It’s very, very BAD for goats to get into the orchard!

One of their other favorite treats are the leaves on my rose bushes.  You’d think the thorns might be a bit of a deterrent, but you’d be wrong.

This I expect.  What I did NOT expect was to look out one day and see our male llama, Samson, had snuck into the back yard and was munching up on my newly leafed-out rosebushes!

He seemed to think they were quite tasty.

He liked them so much, in fact, that in order to get to them, he squirmed through what is a rather small opening for him, considering his size.

I thought perhaps it was a one time thing, but now every morning when I let them out of their night pens, he makes a beeline for the rose garden.  To prevent total defoliation, I’ve had to start shutting the gate to keep him out.

As a matter of fact, yes, I’ve got a problem. I like my rose bushes with leaves on them, thank you very much!

Looking for Signs of Spring

We had a fair amount of wind yesterday, and a few showers.  This morning the weather was lovely, so Toby and I went for a little walk in the woods.

Almost as soon as we got in the woods, we saw new plant growth.  That’s a nice sign spring is on the way!

There were also signs of wind damage, with a smaller tree blown down across the creek.

It will probably be swept away the next time we have enough rain for some high water.

On the way back towards the house, I noticed lots of patches of bright green grass, already growing 4 or 5 inches tall.

Hey, I know it’s just grass, but it’s green, and it’s growing! That sure looks like a sign of spring to me.

Speaking of things that are growing…

Looks like to me that our lovely llama diva has a more rotund mid-section than usual. Sure hope this isn’t just wishful thinking and there’s a little cria growing in there! Her due date is April 1st, and I would love to see a healthy little one arrive on time.

That would be a GREAT sign spring was here!

Friday’s Farm Fotos

It’s been another busy week, and I’ve had to concentrate on work stuff almost 24/7 (except for a few hours sleep here and there). Because of that, I haven’t had much time to post on most of my more “personal” blogs.

So to catch up, here’s a few pictures from the past week. This first one is from last Saturday, when The Farmer was busy working on the peafowl pen. The chicken wire on top was getting old, and something tore big holes in it. I think that “something” was probably raccoons. They like to eat the dog food. In fact, I pretty much know to start looking for holes when I go to check the peafowl’s bowl of dogfood and every morning it’s totally empty. They don’t eat that much on their own!

You can see some of the big holes.  Obviously, The Farmer is standing in one. 🙂  He decided instead of putting more wire there, he’d make a wood roof.  That will give the peafowl a little more shelter in that area, then they have the aviary to go into for lots of sunlight and fresh air.

Some of the peafowl like to search for even more sunshine, and run through the grass with nothing but their feathers on.  Then they tantalize their mother by standing just outside the aviary.

This, of course, puts the mother peahen in a fowl temper, since she can’t reach them to peck them into good behavior.  She clucks at them, and paces up and down on the other side, and they just continue to merrily run all around on the outside.  Some day they will get a rude shock when they can no longer fit through those 4-inch holes in the bottom wire panels of the aviary.

Toby and I continue to take a morning walk in the bottom pasture. Most of the time it’s a fairly short time, just walking once around all the trails. But there’s usually something interesting to see.

I’m not sure what kind of bug this is, but it was enjoying getting a drink from the dew on the weed.

Yesterday morning while walking in the pasture, I was thinking about writing on this blog and that I’d mention all the hummingbirds seem to have left, when I almost ran smack dab into one!  The little hummer was enjoying some nectar from jewel weeds (Impatiens capensis).  I don’t know which one of us was more surprised, but it didn’t stick around long enough for me to take a picture. (They rarely do!)

Then this morning when I was coming up on the front porch, there was another hummer checking out some of the wire bugs I have hanging along the top edge.  That one didn’t stay around long enough for a picture either.  I don’t think these are the regulars, but hummers on their way to points further south.

We’ve been enjoying some excellent weather this week with cool nights (down in the 50’s), and warmer days (up in the 80’s).  I love this kind of weather!  In the mornings, the llamas and Neffie (our Maremma LGD) like to stretch out in sun on the shorter grass in the main pasture. The Farmer keeps it mowed down so I don’t have to wade through wet weeds to get to the well house in the mornings (Thank You Farmer!). 

Keira was stretched out too, but every time I’d try to get close enough to take a picture, she’d sit up. I guess it must feel good to soak up the sunshine on a cool morning. 

While they’re soaking up the sunshine, the guineas are foraging for seeds and bugs. I think as they get older they get stupider. I say this because as you can see here….

… the half-grown keets still have enough sense to just fly up and go over a fence. The adults, however, run up and down the fence looking for a way through. It’s only about 4-foot tall, mind you, and these birds can fly to the tops of some very tall trees around here! They just seem to forget what phenomenal fliers they are when confronted with fences.

The chickens seem to use their brains a little more, and they like to do things with a little more flair. We still have one chicken sitting on eggs in her bright purple bucket. We knew there was also one of the hens sitting on a nest under The Farmer’s work shed.  She came out this week with four little chicks.

She’s taking them out to forage around today, so it won’t be long until they’re running around all over the place too!

I’ve always got a bunch of pictures and it’s hard to choose just a few, but I reckon that’s pretty much the highlights for this week.

Like I said, it’s been another busy week on the farm!