How we met Larry the neighbor, inherited a stray llama, and had baby goats

Moving the pigs

The day we brought the Pot Belly pigs to the new land, the sheriff followed us home.

What's this, we wondered? Is he going to give us grief about our off grid homestead and livestock situation? Richard and I both got out of the car to greet the officer in our driveway.

"Are you missing a llama? he asked.

Quickly we took stock of our half herd of llamas, who were all standing and staring at us with curiosity. Nope. All three boys were in their new pen, waiting for water and hay.

"The neighbor has caught a llama who has been stealing his hay, and he's tired of feeding it," the deputy sheriff informed us.

We had seen a llama a few days prior on the road near our house. It appeared to be out of its pen, on the wrong side of the fence. Before that, we had seen the same llama in that same pen. It looked atrocious, like it hadn't been sheared for a few years. I wondered to myself if the owners would mind if I offered to pay for it to get sheared. (keep in mind, we had to cancel our shearing due to the move, so it's back to searching for someone to shear all of our camelids.) I suspected that this caught llama was the same one.

We told the sheriff about those people and he said he'd check there. Meanwhile though, the neighbor Larry was tired of feeding the hay stealing llama, and the sheriff asked if we'd take it until he could find it's rightful home. In two weeks, if we did not hear form him, we could assume the llama was ours, if we wanted it.

I could only think of the neglected llama and said yes, we'd go get it. After all, what's one more llama?

So, the sheriff gave Larry our number and we unloaded our pigs, which involved building a pig chute out of pallets to direct them into their new pen. it worked wonderfully. It was much easier than getting them into the trailer.

We played phone tag with the neighbor Larry for a few days, and trying to coordinate around our moving schedule was very difficult. So much to do, so little time. We still didn't have the fence up for the girls. We had no place to put the stray llama.

We did get the fence up and got the rest of the farm moved. We spent our first night in the camper and decide to pick up the llama that morning after an ordeal that involved getting water from the free spring off the highway (the pump we bought crapped out after its first use and was non-functional), and our car with a dead battery at said spring (Richard ran home to get the van...three miles or so across the fields), but I managed to get a jump from someone who stopped for water just as Richard came driving up with the van.

Since we had both horse trailers, we decided to stop at Larry's, on our way home, to get the llama.

Larry is the nicest, healthiest 80 year old I think I have ever met. He raises and trains horses, and admitted he knew absolutely nothing about how to deal with a llama. I think we only know marginally more, but we at least had wrestled llamas before. So, I got the gear (halter, lead, trailer) ready while Richard and Larry talked about life in the high desert of the San Luis Valley. Mostly Larry told us about all the people who had come before and eventually had given up because it was too cold, too windy, too hard and just really miserable to live here. The biggest issue, he said, is water.

Sure, sure, it's the desert. But he reiterated what I had read before, about how every time the farmers put in a new irrigation sprinkler on a circle, the level of the water table dropped significantly. There used to be a free flowing spring on his land--catails, grasses, small pond--it was beautiful, he said. All gone. Dried up.

I got the feeling he didn't think we'd be around long, just like all the others who had come before. But he just doesn't know us, does he?

The guilty, hay stealing llama was in a pen in Larry's barn. She was scared, skinny and had dreds of wool hanging down on both of her sides. And she was hard to catch. Like any llama, she didn't want anything to do with any human hands, but it had probably been a while since she been caught and haltered, although I think she had been at some point. We wrestled and wrangled the stray llama and pushed and pulled her into the small horse trailer. She was not happy. I'm not sure I was either, but I was willing to give her some time.

Silly Sally

I was out of breath and the adrenaline was pumping when we pulled into our driveway to put the llama girl into the pen of corral panels we had made for her. But lo and behold, there was a new baby goat laying outside the goat shelter. Fairy had delivered and was still giving birth to her second! I jumped out of the car, left it running with a scared llama in the trailer behind, and went to deliver a goat baby. Now, that was a little more complicated than anticipated. The kid's nose was out, but its feet were nowhere to be seen. I had to go in and get them.

So, I'm yelling for Richard to bring me goat birthing supplies, wiping the bag and mucus off the baby goat so it could breathe, and wondering what to do next. Thankfully Richard showed up fast with clean towels, puppy pads and lubricant. I lubed up my hands and arms and went in. It was a lot like loading a film canister in the dark (for those who have ever developed their own film from old school film cameras). It was all by feel. I was scared and just wanted to call a vet. But I realized how long that would take and had no choice. First I untangled the umbilical cord from the baby's neck and then I felt inside for the feet. When I found one, hooked my finger around the ankle and straightened it out, pulling it out of the birth canal. Then, I had to go back in and find the other. There was not a lot of space in there. But, with Richard encouraging me, I did it. I birthed that goat kid and she is healthy and fine, as is mom and the other kid. Two does. They are the cutest.

Fairy Dust's babies

Wrangled a wild llama, birthed a goat kid, jumped  a dead battery, hauled water for the farm and met Larry, the neighbor...all before noon the last Friday in May.

Now, the llama girl is doing better. We named her Silly Sally after a character in a children's book. She does not belong to anyone in the neighborhood. The two goat doe babies are Trixie and Pixie and are the cutest little things.

We have met with Larry again, when we called for water on the morning after we finished moving the rest of the farm. He allowed us to get a few gallons and even gave Richard a ride up to his house and back. He's a nice guy. (What a blessing.) We needed water for the critters, but got in at 2am the night before and still had a car and trailer packed full of stuff...no place for water and hours of work to make the space. I'm so glad we met Larry the neighbor. He's turning out to be very neighborly. I think this relationship will work out just fine.

We still haven't heard back from the sheriff. The pigs are doing fine. The goats are all great. Silly Sally wants to run with the other llamas. And we still have a few loads of barn stuff to move from neighbor Mark's house in Jaroso. He's a really nice guy too. Nice neighbors are wonderful!

Llama boys in their new pen