The Great Escape

To know Luna Lady is to love her. She is the prettiest and most petite female in our herd. She is a striking solid white in front and a beautiful solid brown in back. For a while we thought she was all beauty and no brains, but we found that she took her name seriously … she is just moonstruck and her mind is embracing the ethereal and not the earthly. She is definitely not a leader … or so we thought, but I am getting ahead of myself.

It was a beautiful late July Friday. The skies were a crystal blue and the temperature was balmy enough to wear shorts and sandals but not so hot that you felt listless. Both Jeanne and I were wearing sandals that day. I had some important assignments to complete and I knew that I would be confined to my office and would not need more solid and protective footgear.

We were having some carpentry work done around the farm and we had “hired” the carpenter’s young son to do a few chores around the farm. At noontime he and his father went into town to have lunch. We went in to have lunch and to enjoy those first sun-warmed tomatoes freshly picked from the vine. Jeanne looked out the window and saw Seabreeze standing at the entrance to the barn. Our young helper had not closed the barrier at the ramp to the upper barn. We quickly forgot lunch and dashed out to find seven of our llamas contemplating their freedom. Seabreeze, who is our gentle giant, decided that she preferred the comfort of the barn to the great outdoors and turned back towards the ramp. Obi Wan Kenobe, Luna’s three-month old son, looked at his mother who was headed for the street, and then looked back at the barn and decided that he was too young for a great adventure. He joined Seabreeze in the barn.

We then turned to see where the remaining five were headed. With Luna in the lead they were headed down to visit one of our neighbors a half-mile down the road. They enjoyed visiting our neighbor’s chickens and pigs and they played queen of the mountain on a knoll in our neighbor’s yard. Jeanne went back to get a bowl of grain to see if she could lure our adventurers back to our farm. After a time she was successful in luring two of them back towards the barn. Meanwhile our neighbor (he owed me one … I spent three and one-half hours trying to catch one of his pigs while he was on vacation) and I tried to encourage the remaining three to head back down the road to our farm.

Luna Lady, again, took the lead and leaped over a barrier into an overgrown pasture belonging to another neighbor. The other two followed suit, as did my neighbor and I. A word about this pasture … it had not been mowed and the hay covered a multitude of brambles … now you know why I emphasized the sandals and shorts earlier in this saga. Once over the barrier the three llamas, with Luna in the lead, gave a demonstration to the two humans in attendance of how fast they can cover ground and how beautiful they are when they are in motion. I had forgotten how beautiful a sight it was to see them running at top speed with no barriers in sight. Looking back I do not begrudge my scratched and bloody limbs because their flight was poetry in motion. I would not have missed it for the world.

My neighbor and I eventually caught up with the three adventurers. They had crossed the fields and were now on another street. We got behind them and followed them as they proudly headed home … with Luna in the lead. As we neared the entrance to our farm, Luna looked wistfully down another street and contemplated whether or not to continue her escapade. Her companions, however, decided to abandon her and headed for the barn. Jeanne, who had been searching for our neighbor, the llamas and me, came to the rescue and encouraged Luna to return to the barn and her son by offering her a bowl of grain.