You would think that 30 years of parenting experience would give me some sort of an edge in getting animals to behave, but you would be wrong. You might also think that 30 years of parenting would have produced a higher level of tolerance for mis-behaving, but that would also be wrong. I am amused but annoyed by the llamas, ready to beat one horse soundly and send him to bed with no supper, and about to have rabbit stew.
So, I had a lovely girls' brunch on Saturday morning. This is a recipe for some size disaster, and I am sure some of you out there will relate. As soon as you indulge in some sort of stress-relieving activity, something is sure as shootin' gonna raise your stress level in compensation. Am I right? There must be some higher law of the universe at work here, and I think someone needs to do a randomized controlled study documenting the proportion of the time women are engaged in (all too infrequent) self-nourishing activities when "the call" comes (you know the call - Mom I Wrecked the Car, Hey Did You Know The Police Are At Your House, and anything that starts with "Now I don't want you to get upset, but..."). So I was having just a swell time, and then I get BOTH a text from my daughter and a call from my husband asking if I got a text from my daughter. The bottom line was that "George had an accident." George is not a person, and we are not talking a motor vehicle calamity. George is a rabbit and he apparently has continence issues.
I have very few pieces of newish furniture, almost nothing I actually bought new. The exception is The Purple Couches. I am rather fond of them. They are big, squishy, velvet, and very purple. Not a garish violent purple but a deep rich LSU purple. They were bought last year, new, for my TV room which was on occasion, I will admit, a shrine to Tiger Football. Since moving to the farm, I no longer have a TV room, and the purple couches took up residence in the family room and got nice colorful throw pillows. I loves me my purple couches. The dog is banned from them. The cats have limited privileges, which are immediately revoked at the first sign of scratching. The rabbit - well who worries about a rabbit jumping on their furniture? I didn't even know he COULD jump on furniture. Apparently he can, and did. And then had a little problem. And this was on the afternoon of the day we had 100 high school kids invading our home for a cast party after the last performance of the play.
I was soooooo not happy. My husband and daughter, in an effort to clean the stains off, had disassembled the couch cushions. It looked like a blizzard had invaded my family room. Apparently my squishy comfy couch is squishy and comfy because the inner cushion covers are fluffed full of feathers and then zip over foam cores with more feathers inside. There were feathers EVERYWHERE. And dabbing with vinegar being ineffective given the size of the problem (I mean DAMN! How can one rabbit possibly have such a large bladder!?) I went to the store and rented a carpet/upholstery cleaner. I THINK it is taken care of, hopefully no residual aromas or stains. Just in time for the invasion of the body snatchers, er teenagers.
So today I was out on the tractor having moved the rabbit hutch into an outbuilding for the winter (so I can get the rabbit out of the house - see earlier blog about the winds and the rabbit hutch), and decided to take a tour of the property to check for the state of the trees and fields since the storms of last week. I came down from the upper fields, past the filbert orchard, and realized I was going to have to get off the tractor, open the gate, get back on the tractor and go through the gate, then get off and close it. I know, DUH, but the issue there is that the gate is therefor going to be open for an interval of time while I am unable to guard it because I am driving a tractor through it. Remember Harry? Remember that I have, roaming these pastures, 3 horses, 4 llamas, 3 goats and a ewe?
So the first gate was no problem - the goats were in that pasture and are so antisocial they could not have cared less about an open gate so long as I was anywhere near it. The horses were also in that pasture, and too busy eating late grass to care about vacating the premises. With this false sense of reassurance I proceeded on through the middle pasture into the pasture nearest the house. The llamas were hanging out here.
What IS it with llamas and escape?? Is this an inbred trait? Are they just furry huddled masses, yearning to breathe free (and determined to make me tired and poor)?? I got off the tractor, opened the gate, and IMMEDIATELY Gabe and Minnie are right there, suddenly my new best friends. I sort of flapped my gloves in their general direction and they backed off, but then as I got back to the tractor they headed for the gate again. We did this dance a few times, and then my husband appeared. He had been watching this whole shindig from the house, and after vacillating between the entertainment value of staying in the house and observing or the more prudent course of coming out to help me, he made the right decision. Good man.
Our friends had just arrived for a visit and dinner, and after eating we went out to see the animals. It was feeding time. I just this weekend put two nice big feeders/hayracks in the pasture. The goal of having TWO of them was so the horses could eat from one, and the llamas/goats/ewe from the other, eliminating the aggressive competition for bucket access. Nice theory, crappy execution. Mac, the big fool of a thoroughbred gelding who dominates the feeding scene, gets a bit aggressive in this scenario. I try to feed him first, and he just eats faster and still comes to steal everyone else's. The other horses, the llamas, the goats, they are all afraid of Mac and will just go ahead and vacate their food when they see him coming. The only one who is unfazed by him is Junie, the ewe. Good for her. So today Mac was in rare form, and we decided not to allow it. One thing which will get his attention is a whip. We have a long purple training whip (no we do NOT beat him with it, all you have to do is raise it and they instinctively react to it with avoidance), and my daughter got it out and brandished it in his general direction, causing him to run away from the feeders. He did not like doing this. It made him cranky and he ran around like an idiot, back and forth from one feeder's vicinity to the other, foiled at both directions, then running around in big circles. Big flamboyant circles. Bucking and kicking.
So here's the thing. He is (sorry guys) SUCH A GUY. If he could reach his front hoof back there he would probably stand in the pasture and scratch himself, you know where. Instead, he runs, bucks, and then kicks his right rear leg out to the side in a very aggressive male gesture. This would be more impressive but for one thing. Every time he does it, he FARTS. Big rousing horsey farts. So here is this huge gelding, running around kicking his back legs out and farting, and still thinking he should be taken seriously. Our friends were dying laughing. To his credit, he eventually settled down (my husband the animal whisperer got his arm around Mac's neck and held his head and just walked him around - I was duly impressed) and ate at the feeder with the other horses without scaring them off.
But I am one put out mama. How do you put llamas, a horse and a rabbit in time out?