Ears that hear and eyes that see– the LORD has made them both.~Proverbs 20:12

Its one of those Brown Sugar Sky days here on the west Texas plains. As the winds started to blow more and more, I was disappointed because I really wanted to enjoy being outside with the Girls today. I had a meeting yesterday and got home right a dusk, so I had no time to even visit with them. Its supposed to be quite chilly tomorrow, so I’m looking forward to Thursday and some better spring weather.

If I can’t be outside working on our relationship, I’ll stay inside and add more insight to our trials and tribulations. I’ve already done my share of googling all things llama, which has, more than anything, made me wonder – #1 why I didn’t already know that logical solution, then thinking B) do the Peruvian Incas use google to figure out what to do with their llamas up at Machu Pichu, which leads to III) is there WiFi at 7,972 feet above sea level? My monkey mind digresses…

In my googling here at a windy 3,256 feet above sea level, I’ve learned that llamas are true 4H projects, just like heifers & steers & sheep & goats & chickens & rabbits & mini donkeys, and one person even claimed to have shown peacocks…you can even lease your llama if you live in the big city! One important fact I read was to make sure if you have a llama that hasn’t had a halter affixed to her cute little head, you most likely will want to have the person from whom you are getting the llama do this for you. This was the first of many facts I read thinking, I wish I’d read this BEFORE…in this case, BEFORE Juan placed that halter on their cute little heads. I don’t think we have done any permanent damage for them to forever associate us with a bad experience.

So much of my googling has happened because I haven’t known if they are upset with me or with each other.

Case in point: Llama Ears
Not only do their PERKED UP ears make them look so stinkin’ cute, ears in this position are basically telling me everything is a-ok, or like the spastic dog in the movie Up, they have seen something that has gotten their full SQUIRREL/CAT/DOG/TUMBLEWEED! attention.

~Now on to the not so precious sight~

Not only do their PINNED BACK ears make them look much less stinkin’ cute, ears in this position mean you are stinkin’ in my space and you may end up stinkin’ in the end. It took me a few days, some googling, and some experience, to realize that in this case, Katy Perry is not happy, and she’s emphasizing the point by stretching out her neck too.

She wasn’t happy with me at one point as I followed her around with the feed bucket, and she wasn’t in the mood that first day to deal with me. (I’ll come back to the feed bucket in a moment.) I got snorted at-not quite a fulll fledged, from the belly, smelly spitter, but I got the point., as a few of the feed pellets she had been saving in her mouth flew by my ear at a rate of speed. In the picture above, she’s more irritated with Harley for stepping in front of her when she and I were enjoying some good pats. Her outstretched neck means she is considering that from the belly smelly spitter.

Another thing I learned from google, which made me think “why is google so smart and I’m so dumb,” was with the feed bucket. Llama Llady kept telling me “its all about the feed” so off I went out in our small pasture to shake the feed bucket with hopes of being the Pied Piper and gain a llama following quickly. I didn’t consider the fact that we’d already asked the Girls to put on a halter, load in a trailer, ride away from their home, unload from the trailer, and get used to a new place. Now I was asking them to come and eat from some wackadoo who had asked them to do all those scary things above! After that frustration, I found another google nugget-if your llamas are in a pasture, don’t follow them around with the feed bucket. This only teaches them that they can simply ~~walk~~ run away from you when they aren’t interested and its a fun game as you follow them all over the back 40. Lesson learned! Now I get the bucket, go outside the fence, and they come to me. I also learned, on my own, without ~~cheating~~ googling, that if I go out to visit at the fence first without the bucket, they come to me thinking I just might have a morsel or two.

Who’s the smartie now???