It's diversion time, you dedicated kossaps, for "animals is peeple too diaries". Obligingly picking up the tale after my first ever top comment, this is a rusty Chapter Finis to the 3 month LLAMA WARS, featuring BUDDY.
It was 9 am, a drizzly, foggy Sunday. Weather similar to my 12/2008 Suicidal Goat diary. And everything is wee weed up.
Its time to call up a surge....
Sunday 9 am.
Visualize the Perilous Pauline goat photo above.
The 2 gates and a fence section were dismantled Saturday afternoon. It's now smoke and mirrors, if Larry breaks in again and snorts, the whole shebang would FAILZ.
Kristy and Myron, Buddy's future owners, are coming down from the far NW corner of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. ETA 11:00 am.
Larry is still prowling the fence, pre-spit ball battle stance.
this picture was taken with my neighbor's camera, please disregard specifics for the duration of this diary...
Quickie catchup from Sunday's MF comment, a rolling series of events
Why God is a shepherd..... (28+ / 0-)
Because these damn confounding animals can outwit us EVERY time.
Dawn approacheth, the soon to be owners of Buddy are probably already hitched up and on the road.
I was going to be soooooo cool about llama loading, I locked up Buddy Thurs evening and proceeded to fatten him on corn. Yesterday when my amigo came to pick up his 3 Christmas goats, Buddy stayed out of the way.
BUT, I had been locking the other main pasture gate every day when the goats left, to keep Larry 50 yards away from Buddy, Buddy had been pacing, but I noticed he finally lay down and chewed cud.
Yesterday, I went out to start the charcoal, and when I came off the porch, DISASTER.
The 12 foot gate had been pushed in, knocking down the 6 foot gate 4 ft gate (sic) and about 10 foot of fence (you don't change a crosstie post until the last moment, doncha know). And from the direction of the debris, all the blame is Larry's.
So I have a 20 foot gap into the back yard, no sign of Buddy, but Larry is pacing the wrong fence. Is Buddy on the highway???? No time to look, cuz a bunch of nannies are noticing my wrecked situation.
Bang bang, 7 metal posts, some hard fencing, gates wired erect but no longer egressable.
Well, long story longer, Buddy is in the back corner, so I'm going to try a solo roundup, before I call the neighbors out into the rainy morning.
God is a shepherd, because animal try the patience of man !
Buddy is in the far SE corner of the 5 acre cutout pasture, 2 solo attempts and 2 more tries with my 82 year old mother, waving her cane, are futile.
Some early nannies with kids are locked in the rear rooms of the barn, hollering to get out every time I pass. And 10 red angus cows on the fence-line are following the action, well, really they were following Buddy's corn ration rattling in the metal bucket.
But Buddy ain't falling for old "corn in a bucket trick", he's been penned up for 3 days, endured rude invasion by Larry.
TIME FOR A YOU DIDN'T KNOW FACTOID:
Llamas make manure piles.
They go to the same place to do the #2, unlike goats who are manure machines, or cows that can go whenever or whereever they please. A llama's manure area is like a chain and a collar to a rottweiler, and it explains a whole lot about llamawars. SAFMS.
What I need, pronto, are neighbors on ATV's. I first go to Edwin across the road,
but camouflaged Kawasaki is over at his son's house, 3 counties away. It's deer season, doncha know?
Edwin's the guy who caught the 14 pound bass out of my pond.
Edwin says he'll join my infantry, with me and mom, that's 6 waving arms, but only two running in rubber boots legs (mine).
I walk a quarter mile down to Jake's house, and after describing my surge idea, he agrees to ride over on his Honda Rancher. Jake not only has to get dressed for the weather, when he went went to the barn to crank up his ATV, the battery needed jumping.
Even for all Jake's hassles, he's in a better mood than Debbie Causey. I woke her up, she grouchily informed me that husband Floyd and son, John Wayne, are at a rodeo in Kentucky. Two other phone calls found nobody else THAT interested in getting the church shoes muddy on such short notice. Everybody, however, would be happy to help after lunch.....
10 am
So, there's me carrying a black plastic swooshing instrument , 82 year old mom and her cane, Edwin dressed like a camouflaged crawdad picker, and Jake roaring around on the orage moto-quarter horse.
It takes Jake two tries to run him up to the pond's edge, the first time I threw my swoosher as he headed rearward. Edwin has picked up a 6 foot pine limb, seeing me and mom waving our weapons.
Jake drove Buddy through, to the near side of the pond.
Buddy of course waded knee high into the water, so we took a minute to regroup.
I positioned reserve infantry on the wings, mechanized in the middle, and I was now amphibious, boots in the mud, throwing pine cones trying to turn the llama backerds out of the pond.
I got him moving, along the barnyard fenceline, around the corral, could hear Jake's Honda coming through the muck.
Buddy made a break for it !!!!!
Me running sidewise, Jake coming forward, I hear the infantry yelling and laughing, which caused Buddy to flinch.
Jake gave the motor a roar, wheels slinging mud on both of us and Buddy, BUT the 2 of us got him through the barnyard gate.
That's when I saw what caused the Buddy's hesitance at the crucial moment. Edwin had got caught in the tall grass, did a summersault, and nearly whacked Mom with the pine branch. His ass was wet, the marshy conditions behind the pond thankfully??? broke his fall.
Minutes later:
Boom boom boom, Buddy is in room 3 of the 22 room Goat Motel.
Jake and Edwin are paid off in Christmas fudge. They both volunteer to come back when the Underwoods arrive, especially after I explain my plan to drive Buddy up a tunnel of panels and tarps, right into the trailer. That plan sounded logical to me, potentially hilarious to them.
11:14 am
The Underwoods pull into the yard, a small pickup pulling a small horse trailer. Uh oh, a small horse trailer divided in two, meaning I would have to drive a 300 pound pissed off llama, NOW even more pissed off since encountering Jake on a Honda, into a 2 foot space.
The tunnel idea is out, our only chance is putting a harness on him.
Luckily Kristy is a llama whisperer, after some cajoling in the open Room 3, we squeeze him into a chute built to hold 20 goats. I rip the chute door off its hinges to block him up in there, and in a minute, she slips on the purple harness, with 2 straps.
She likes Buddy, he didn't spit at us. Kristy says her teenaged daughter will tame him within days, she can already tell he's big enough to handle the female llama, back at their house.
TIME FOR ANOTHER LLAMA FACTOID:
There are small Chile llamas and large types like Larry and Buddy, but none near Muscle Shoals big enough for the purposes, they had been trying to breed their mare for over a year, so llama wrestling would not be unusual in that enterprise.
NOT WORTH THE TROUBLE, imho.
I grab the shorter strap, Kristy has the longer one, Myron is getting this narrow trailer ready. Mom and Edwin are to the side, getting ready for more falling on the ass comedy.
There was nearly a finger breaking moment for me when he twisted his head in a last leap attempt, I have to unknot from the harness.
Edwin and Mom are watching from the side, laughing out instructions when I find myself inside the trailer with no chance of getting back out. Myron is reaching through an opening in the side of the trailer, telling me to pass the long strap.
Unknotting my body from the trailer, I get behind Buddy, do a rump push and then a dangerous front leg lift, finally Buddy bounces in.
Door shut, mission nearly accomplished. Buddy in no longer my llama.
That Damn Larry acted goofy all day Monday, trying to figure out whassup, and when Kristy e-mails me the new chapter, I'll update the MF crew.
(apologies for the diary rustiness, I doubt I can make a tip jar either)