Farm Friday, June 3rd, 2022
A tribute to our llama, Precious. Plus a dragon story.
This has been a hard week for Precious and for us all on the farm. Starting May 16th, she hasn’t stood up on her own. On that day, when she fell in the pasture, we were able to stand her up and walk her to a pen in the barn. Since then, we have fallen into a routine of standing her up three times a day to stretch her legs and clean up under her.
Our llama vet, Dr. Nick, has been out twice, and the blood test results reveal anemia, which could be a symptom of any number of causes. We have given her some digestion support and some shots for the anemia, but the reality is Precious is an elder llama, and she is likely near the end of her life. She is still sitting down, but she appears comfortable when she is sitting, so we are giving a little time for the anemia support to work.
Precious has been with us for 21 years, and we think she was at least three when we got her, so for a llama, she has lived a good long life. This doesn’t make it any easier to say goodbye or to see her unable to be with her sheep. At least the pen we have her in is next to the sheep and they can see and hear each other.
In 2000, when my partner and I were brand new to the farm, a family from the school gifted us two Shetland sheep, Olive and Gerta. We had had chickens before but we knew nothing about sheep. We made friends with our sheep farming neighbors J and L and they told us that sheep could be guarded by a llama instead of a dog. Guard dogs are expensive and for two sheep, it made much more sense to have a llama. Llamas eat the same food as sheep and are natural guard animals because they have an instinct to guard the smaller animals in the herd.
Our neighbors had Precious and thought she would be a good fit for our farm. This turned out to be true and it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between us and this incredible, intelligent llama.
We hear some “clicking” in Precious’ joints when she walks. Dr. Nick thinks it might be the long-term effects of the sideways gait for 20 years, and he has had Precious taking llama pain pills for the last couple of years.
Precious has been the best llama we could have ever hoped for. She is good with the sheep and careful around children. She only spits when we give her shots and even then she just spits in the air.
This week, I wrote a story for a Vocal Challenge. The prompt was to write the first chapter of a fantasy novel. The chapter has to begin with the sentence “There weren’t always dragons in the valley.” I chose to write a story that honors Precious. Here it is:
