Romancing The Farm?

Lest I be guilty of romanticizing life on the farm (ok, I do), here's the post that reminds romance readers of all texts that reality does set in on a daily basis. Each season comes with its own particular problems. Today is a classic spring day. Our farmer plowed under the orchard grass in the pasture by our new barn. He was definitely told NOT to do that, but he did anyway. So, he's replanting grass one month behind schedule, and it may not take. The dirt blow back is almost unliveable; everything is covered with more than a thin veneer of good old-fashioned topsoil. Definitely not happy. Definitely not a farm romance.

Combine that with mowing the grass. I have, without a doubt, the BEST HELP! But between the plowing and the mowing, even indoors my allergies kicked into high gear. The silver lining: I do not have to cut the grass.

Spring ushers in a different kind of llama care. The girls need shearing, and I am having huge problems with the person scheduled to shear them. I may need to learn how to clip them myself. Not so terrible, just a huge learning curve. They are not clipped the same way my horses were. Still, I'm not a novice at clipping.

Then there's the constant shift of weather, hot and cold. My biggest concern is always the fans; when to put them on, and worrying while they run. There's also a different kind of clean up; I sweep more often, and am going to invest in an industrial wet/dry vacuum sometime this week. I do love a clean barn. Finally, I do need to groom the girls before they are clipped. And do I gamble that this summer will be better, with time to learn to wash their harvested fiber, spin and use it. Time will tell.

Is a farm work? Absolutely. Constant work, and even with a team of two to four every other week, there is still much to be done to maintain the beauty and romance of the place. I used to be the primary worker; now, even with a team, I still put in 8 hours yesterday and today. Not a complaint; you could not drag me off the farm. As long as a looker-on visualizes the hours of maintenance behind the beauty, it's okay to romance the farm.

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Facing First Light

Cross-posted on Beating Back Cancer

She is my Sophisticated Lady, elegant, fine-boned, beautifully chiseled, and reserved. You might ask, which one. Fawn or white. (You guessed correctly if you chose the lady on the left, although the white llama is my soul mate.)

Almost timid; it runs in her bloodlines. Although she is a perfect weight, she is thinner than I would like, what animal people call a hard keeper. Because she will not spit off another llama at feeding time, I am her protector, her grain keeper, and I make sure she has her full measure. Because I hand feed her (the Spoiled Rotten Llamas plaque is so appropriate), each morning we share extra time together, facing first light as it moves slowly over our mountain.

There is a stillness as you watch the invisible made visible, light rising eerily behind a copse of trees, velvet muzzle on your hand, sounds from grain crunchers. In this shared time with one of God's elegant creatures, I ponder the day ahead. How can I make a text more relevant for my students. What about myself needs reinvention. Was my aunt's knee replacement a success. And I pray. "Lord, make me a blessing to someone today." (Jan Karon, At Home in Mitford)

Facing first light, I confront my fears, small as they are. Questions about the future progression of my disease, will it attack other organs, will it lead to leukemia, what are the first real symptoms I should look for, is there a cancer diet. Small things, really. But life fully lived, on my terms, always asks hard questions. Because I can ask them, I can face the answers, facing first light.

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Berry Acres Public Auction: November 27, 2009

Sadly, the llama community is losing a stellar team of breeders who have been in this business for many years. Their breeding program has seriously impacted and improved the llama industry at a national (and perhaps global--I am still too much a newcomer to know) level. Having sold their herd, the owners of Berry Acres Llamas (please view the slide show on their blog--exquisite images) are now selling 25 years of accumulated farm and llama-related items. Their magnificent property is also for sale. You can view a list of items for auction here.

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That Look

If you read spy novels, you have learned to read the tell of characters that people your fictional worlds. If you know me well, you can read the tells that my life is raging beyond bounds: clutter abounds and I do not get to blog. Piles strewn, like mental labyrinths, can be navigated, but nothing compensates for a stockpile of posts piling like leaves, needing collection. So it is that this post is a retrospective, something that happened last weekend. It was an event, and it had that look.

Image via Wikipedia

The notion of that look has morphed through time. Younger and thinner, I had that look, and walking through Hess's, I was often mistaken for a model. Grand fun. My mother loved every minute. Then, as you move through life, that look becomes a child's face on the moment of crumbling into something that will keep you up nights. That look on Cierra's face, poking out through the plastic sheets, had the tell. She was there, but somehow I knew Et Cetera was not. A mother's instinct easily transfers to animals, so I got on the golf cart determined to see if the fence was breached. Not. Then I saw her, in the middle of an alfalfa field, munching, determined not be to be lured. Long story short: when you have only you to count on, you pray to God and your favorite saint to give you that one chance you have to catch the wayward one. Prayers answered and Et Cetera rewarded with more grain than she deserved, but safely home.

Now we use the electric fence, which I hate but see as necessary. Still I am haunted about how she escaped. Next Friday we are adding a bottom row of fencing, and before the birth of our first cria, two things will happen: we WILL turn the electric fence off, and we WILL install a containment fence on the outside perimeter of our first fence. I have relearned how there are no sure things in life, just those things on which you hang your hopes and dreams, and you do what is necessary to insure their safety.

Open Barn at Buck Hollow Llamas

You could not have asked for a better weekend for an Open Barn; April 25-26, 2009's weather was as good as it gets. In fact, everything about the Carol and Doug Reigh's annual event at Buck Hollow Llamas was picture perfect. The llamas looked wonderful, the farm itself is bucolically beautiful, and the vendors with whom we spent the afternoon were the most wonderful people who taught Mickey and me about the craft of shearing, cleaning, carding, spinning, and weaving llama fiber. I left with my head spinning with all the things I could do--and how to do it--with the fiber from my girls.

The original homestead was home base for Carol's wares; fiber, rugs, llama toys, llama puzzles, "Deliberately Mismatched Socks Made in Vermont" (very eco-chic recycled T-shirts repurposed), free popcorn and beverages, and lunch for volunteers and vendors. Solid construction of a century created natural air-conditioning in a charming environment.

The upper part of the barn was home for the vendors, and that's where Mickey and I provided the meet and greet at the registration table. Actually, my husband did the lion's share of the greetings, improving on Carol's registration form for next year, while I wandered and shopped (okay, I did help, but the llamas were such a pull and I was shopping...).

In my meanderings, I got to talk to the guests and learn about grooming (very different from horses). The farm is a beautiful place, serene despite the activity of the day's events, which included videos, haltering demonstrations, a tour of the farm, llama walks, cart driving, and vendor demonstrations. Everything about the day was low-keyed and lovely, a de-stressor and great day in the country, as you can see in the videos below. Some of the images were too big for Animoto, so I am working on where I can put them. For now, I cannot resist including some of the best photos I have ever seen of my husband. The llama is pretty cute too.

BHLF Open Barn
Llamas
Carol Reigh
Buck Hollow Llama Farm, Inc.
Turbo Tagger

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Greener Grass

Is it just that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence (no grass on either side but does that matter) or that llamas are inherently curious creatures. Or are they capable of attachment and want to be with you, wherever you go. If you are an owner longer than I, you might have the answer. I choose to believe that one of the llamas who owns me would like to be at my side, given the choice. The second is food-driven, a girl who loves playing in the pasture, cavorting. The third is independent, a guard llama and great aunt to the core. It's in her gene pool.

I am slowly learning llama language, the posturing of bodies, stances, and sounds that communicate among them who is alpha from beta or beyond. If there is anything I adore about being a llama mamma, it is sharing the sense of caprice that seems to run in the breed, the way they cavort and telegraph a sense of fun, the joy of daily living, encapsulated in these graceful, agile (well, most of the time) creatures.

When I started to film the girls, a capture-the-moment-very-quickly impulse, I thought of the BrainyFlix - YouTube SAT Video Contest. Just couldn't capitalize quickly enough to follow the contest format. Here's another version of cavort.



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Changing Connections

Meet "The Girls." They are my passion, my avocation, and my future as I change connections and begin a new learning curve and a new blog, Learning Llamas. My odyssey toward llamas seems, as I reflect, a natural extension of having ridden and shown horses competitively for 24 years. While I do not believe that life should be lived age-or-gender specific (I have always worked against the norm), a time comes when balance, judgment, and timing cannot be the sole responsibility of a great packer, a horse that babysits the rider over 4' fences and wide oxers. When my last great equine babysitter died, I felt a void beyond description, and subsequently had several opportunities to be gifted with great bloodlines that did not succeed on the track. That inner voice that speaks to me heeded my husband's concerns that I should seek a different venture.

Several years passed, consoled with loving canine and feline friends, but an empty (and brand new) large barn sat atop a hill, beckoning. Then, two years ago, we wandered to the northern reaches of Pennsylvania to a fiber festival. My husband thought he was going to a fiber optics show, but destiny led us to the Harford Fiber Festival. That was the beginning of my journey toward learning llamas, but I did not know it at the time. Another year passed, and then in spring we received an invitation to an Open Barn at the Buck Hollow Llama Farm. (As a vendor at the fiber festival, Carol had access to people who bid on the silent auctions, which is how she found us). We went, and took my best friend, Jennifer Brinson, with us--to buy fiber. Several hours later, we had fallen irretrievably in love with Tess. She stole our hearts, and as we left Carol Reigh's farm that day, I knew that a piece of my heart was left behind. Two weeks later, my husband bought Tess Allenby for me. After all, she wasn't a horse, I couldn't ride her, and ergo I would have a safe occupant in the beckoning barn. Everyone knows that llamas are herd creatures, so the search for the companion llama began, and late summer we purchased Rev, who was Tess's best friend since they grew up together.

God must have been watching and guiding us on our llama adventure, for we were truly blessed to find Carol Reigh and her llamas. Although we had a barn, we needed to decide actually to use it (versus building a new one, a decision that we belabored perhaps too long, but then, my husband makes all the decisions and he really is always right, so I defer to his judgment). Then came fencing, which kind and contractor (we followed Carol's recommendation and love the final product), and which pastures we should use to work from the barn. We added a roof extension for the girls to kush down under, and by Thanksgiving, the girls were ready to arrive. From April to November, Carol tended to our girls, taking care of them, teaching me when I visited them, helping me with design and layout and a host of decisions. She even shopped for me, outfitting the girls in style. I arrived home from school the day before Thanksgiving, and Carol and the girls were waiting, with a loaner llama who would winter with the girls as their aunt. Well, suffice it to say that for Christmas, my husband bought Miss Cierra, who has taught the girls well and been the greatest aunt of all, and a great guard llama with The Canadian bloodline as part of her gene pool. When Carol said that she would always provide service after the sale, she was true to her word. I have often called or emailed her with questions, and she has always been kind, caring, and generous with her time and knowledge. She is truly, like her llamas, one of a kind.
Buck Hollow Llamas, Inc.
Carol Reigh
Llamas
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