Honeydew is our Llama. When I started writing this blog I did not mention that we had a llama because at that time we didn't..... well sort of. Here is the tale of Honeydew.
When I agreed to buy sheep from my friend who was going out of the business as it were, I also agreed to take in a llama who was known to be 'high spirited'. This did not concern me as I was an idiot and had no clue what a llama can do. Llamas are highly intelligent animals and they are capable of feats of amazing..... well they can clear a fence that is 6 or 7 feet high with out a backward glance. They are large weighing up to 350 - 500 lbs in a grown animal. They have eyes as big as saucers and can see things miles off. They learn very quickly..... and most important they don't trust humans..... at least Honeydew doesn't.
Honeydew likes our sheep and watches over them as if they were her friends, which, I suppose in some sense, is true. Along about September, when we were weaning our lambs, Jelly my Romney ewe got anxious about her lamb who was in another paddock and so she pushed her way through the fence. The llama, who was in the pen with the mother sheep, saw her chance and made a break for it. She meandered out to the road in front of our house and proceeded to nibble the green grass along the edges of said road. The sheep thought this was great and so the whole flock proceeded to follow her.
Meanwhile I was in the house unaware of what was happening. I happened to glance out of the window and noticed that the alpacas in their pen were watching with great interest as my flock of sheep and the llama made a break for it down the road.
Needless to say my heart began to pound as panic set in. I was home alone with no one to help me get my animals back. I quickly ran to the shed and grabbed a bucket of oats and proceeded to run to the end of my driveway in an effort to 'head off' the animals from wandering further down the road.
Getting the attention of sheep is not the easiest when all you have is a bucket of oats and they are head-down in foot long green grass. I knew my best bet was to get Jelly's attention since she can't turn up oats at all, and also the others follow her as she is kind of their leader..... it worked. The sheep followed me quite placidly back to the fold where they proceeded to munch oats as I fixed up the busted up gate. Meanwhile Honeydew took one look at the bucket of oats and decided the green grass was her best bet. For the rest of the afternoon I spent my time trying to coax her to come with me because I had oats and she didn't.
We live on a road that has a turn-around at the end of it. There is a lovely little community forest at the end of that road with walking/skiing trails. There is approximately 200 acres of forest and bordering the forest on two sides is some lovely fenced pasture. I knew that if Honeydew found the trail head that comes out at the end of our road that would be the end of her. She did.
After Hubby and the Daughters spent all afternoon, after they returned from school, trying to chase Honeydew back into the paddock and scaring the freaking wits out of her, she finally bolted off down the nearest trail. I put out a PSA (community service announcement) to let people know she was on the loose. I spent the next few days trying to locate her which I eventually did. She spent the majority of the fall in a pasture of one of our neighbours where she fed voraciously on grass and alfalfa. She had no need to return and every time I tried to coax her to take oats she completely ignored me. Hubby and I even spent an afternoon chasing her back and forth the pasture just about bursting our lungs in the process. Trying to outrun a llama is a completely pointless activity, we discovered. They can run very fast.
She continued to thwart our every effort at recapture. Then finally when the snow came, she decided to move on. We had reports of sightings in various fields over the next few weeks and meanwhile we were getting closer to Christmas. Then finally just before Christmas break the llama was caught by one of Hubby's students..... he wanted to keep her. Considering that we were seriously thinking of turning her into jerky, we felt that if he wanted her and his parents were ok with it, that we were too.
I finally put the llama situation to rest and forgot about her. Then the fateful day came when we got a call from the family who had "wanted" her, to tell us that they had set her free and she was not welcome at their place as she scared their horses. Hm!
Now why they couldn't keep her so that we could come pick her up I don't know. Setting her free was the worst case scenario that I could think of. We were back to square one.
Then, praises be, we got a call from the local rodeo arena that she was getting into hay at their facility and could we please come and do something about it. Hubby and I went to have a look as it was cold..... really cold and snowing to beat the bands. She was hungry and though Hubby couldn't do much with his back in a shambles I proceeded to try my hand at capture. I was able to lead her into a small paddock and that is where she stayed for the rest of the week while Hubby took priority in my mind with his back ailment. Then Friday past I was able to line up some friends with a trailer and some other friends who had experience with llamas and we managed to catch her and bring her home.
It was four months pretty much to the day that the llama was on the loose. She is home now and acts as if it were all our fault that she was able to lose as much weight as she did. She is quite content to be back with her friends. You have no idea how relieved I am to have her home and not causing problems among the members of the community...... However, Hubby is ticked. He says that if she gets out again then the only thing following her will be a bullet! I'm not quite sure how I feel. I certainly look at her with a different feeling than I used to have. I don't think she is cool anymore. I think she is a big pain in the.... well you know. But still, when she looks at me with those big brown eyes..... I kind of feel that she is sorry she made so much trouble for us as she did, that she is glad to be home, that she likes me... a little.
By the way, the one thing about llamas that I didn't tell you is that they are the most coniving stinkers you will ever come across. How dare she make me like her again.....
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