Zen and the Art of Fence-post Carrying.

Oh gosh! It's more than a week since our last posting. How remiss of us. Our only excuse is busy business and constant hard work. Last week we bought another 110 fence posts (1.8m length, mostly 6 - 7.5 cm diameter, for those of you who care about such things) and a kilometre of wire (25kg) and began the relentless task of fencing our next area for the llamas, which has come to be known as The Rough Land.

As I believe I may have mentioned earlier, the land is steep, and access to it is not easy. We have to drive the land rover up country tracks, around the edge of some vineyards, and park at the edge of a wheat field, which we then have to walk round/through, before even reaching the boundary of our land. Then Simon has had to create a track through a long thin wedge of flattish, but overgrown land to reach the hilly area, where the boundaries of the land open out to create what could loosely be called a field. This steep 'field' is also heavily overgrown, but has a few clearings full of long grass, and other small vegetation.

The remoteness of the spot has its attractions (SO nice not to have to keep explaining what we are doing to passers-by), but it doesn't make getting 110 fence posts on to it very easy.



As usual, we arrived at a consistent division of labour. Simon did all the 'skilled' work of deciding where to put the posts, and then banging them in with big muscles and the post-banger. I did most of the 'gofer' work, moving the posts from the car to the land, and then up the hill to wherever they were needed. That meant five trips in the car with 20 plus posts each time, with each lot of 20 divided by the number of posts I could carry at one go, (which pretty much averaged out at three).

Now if you're keeping up with me, you'll have realised this meant around 36 return walking/carrying trips between the car and the beginning of the area to be fenced. Of course, we chose the hottest days of the week (of the year so far actually) to do the work, and the splinters on the posts meant substantial arm-covering clothing and gloves had to be worn.

Why, oh why are we doing this? Whose damned stupid idea was it to keep llamas in the first place! On a hot, sunny, Spring day in the South of France, any sane person would be sitting in the shade admiring the view from the terrace with a cold beer, a bowl of peanuts and a good book.

Still, such repetitive and hard tasks are always good for inspiring a bit of zen thinking. Of course, sweeping sand has gotta be a whole lot easier, but the notion is the same. Just be aware of this moment now. Don't let your mind fill with the horror of what is yet to come. Just take this step now. And another one. And another one. "The greatest things in the world must be accomplished through the smallest"; "A thousand-mile journey begins with a single step", (some nuggets of wisdom from the Tao Te Ching).

When one is concentrating only on This Step, it is very hard not to start counting them. Obviously, I'm not yet very good at concentrating on This Step. During the 36 return trips between the car and the 'post-depository' on the land, I counted 199 steps on the way in, and 177 on the way back. Clearly I take bigger steps when unladen. If my maths is accurate (ha!) that makes a total of 13,536 steps, more than 50% of which involved a heavy burden of splintered and unwieldy wood. And then the posts of evil had to be dragged up hill through the narrow, prickly, stumpy, steep pathways (that Simon had created specially for the purpose with his Big Strimmer), and laid out at appropriate intervals ready for the Banging-In.

Actually, during this last part of the process. my ability to concentrate on just This Step improved considerably. It took all my mental and physical powers just to stay upright and keep moving. But I swear at some points I was 'in the zone'. Just doing it, and doing it some more. It would be wonderful to be able to live all of life like that. Being aware of the detail of the present moment without passing judgement on it, or slipping into thinking about some undetermined point in the future when Things will be Better.

Suffice it to say, over the course of the hottest days of April, all the posts got put where they should be and banged into place. And despite a little bit of (slightly sneering, I think) health advice from our French neighbour (" You have a lot of colour! You don't want to work in the middle of the day. If you want to live long, you must start at 8.00am, stop at 11.30, eat and rest till 4.00pm, then work again till 7.00pm. And if it is too hot, you just don't work."), we were pleased with having accomplished a Great Thing.

Today, we started the next task of attaching the wire to the posts. Another big-heavy-pig-of-a-thing to get up to the top of a hill. Another learning experience. Allusions to the Myth of Sysiphus spring to mind. I don't like to hope too much, but at the moment we are feeling optimistic that the field will be secure and ready for the llamas by the end of this week. And yet, even as I write that, I sort of know that something will happen to confound such positive expectations.

What's in a name? (part 3)

Well, the baby is now two weeks old, and she has to be named . . .

As always, we've agonised over this, and given it the systematic overkill. We thought that we should establish some sort of 'theme', so that future babies would have names that linked them together. So, Val has gone through all the lists of French girls' names she can find. The internet has been trawled for ideas. I guess we knew that when we hit on the right one we would know it (perhaps our approach to all of this new life is really just systematic stumbling?).

We've chosen a name which has French and Peruvian connections: Capucine. This is pronounced ca-poo-seen, and is the French word for Nasturtium. Our trusty French dictionary tells us that the nasturtium was introduced to France from Peru. Neat? Or just a little obsessive?

So the theme is to be flower names, although Val has pointed out that this would be a bit wimpy for the males, so we might have to have something more macho for any potential studs. But then what if they are castrated? Sexism gets much more complicated in the world of the gelded . . . . .

An uneasy peace

Things seem to have settled down. We now have two separate herds.

Duc (front) and Valentine are facing away from Pedro, which suggests that they are being submissive. Pedro, meanwhile, paces up and down the fence line, with a "you looking at me?" expression. And young Ana is just mystified that everyone is no longer friendly . . .










When Duc or Valentine approach the dividing line - which they are still doing a lot, albeit tentatively - Pedro instantly adopts an aggressive stance. with ears back. Valentine has his forward, which in this case shows non-aggression. Duc has not yet managed to get so close, no doubt because he can't be so placatory. Valentine is really just a nice wimp! Fatma, the cause of all the problem, smirks in the background.

Things can't carry on like this, if only because Valentine and Duc now only have a very small area which is pretty grass-free. Now we have to get a load more fence posts and start work on some of the 'rough' land which we have agreed to buy.

Roll on the wheat harvest, when we can take over all the nice flat land. Shame it will have only stubble on it, rather than fresh grass to eat!

Nothing much happens

A few days have passed since the Bad Day.

The hurdle of obtaining hay has been surmounted, (Remotely Interesting Fact: thirty two bales fit in our horse trailer, and weigh around a ton). The guttering has been installed on the field shelter, so the rain water collects in the llamas drinking bucket. Neat. The vegetable garden is taking shape – tomatoes, lettuces, courgettes and leeks in the ground; tomato, red pepper and basil seeds in pots. Despite all the Fuss and Bother of last Wednesday, no mating has yet taken place in llama land. As far as we know.

April continues to shower. Warm and sunny one minute. Heavy rain the next. The field is muddy. The track up to the top gate is muddier. The drive up it in the land rover is scary. More adrenalin bursts, as the road tyres get slick with mud and the only possible movement is a sideways slide towards the edge of a wooded precipice. Eventually back on the safety of the rutted tarmac, we laugh at the muddy trails we leave in the road, just like Real Farmers (and contemplate, with a guilty shudder, the possible consequences for unsuspecting bikers).

We take the dog for a walk, and have a good look at the next bit of rough land we intend to fence. It’s steep in many places and brim-full of prickly stuff. While I stand in a ‘clearing’ of Very Long Grass, Simon ventures off to explore the possible boundaries, leaving me alone in the silence. Strange, low grunting noises from close-by make me jump, and send Max the Lionheart whimpering to my side. The sun is hot, the sky a beautiful expanse of rolling silver and grey clouds bundling around in patches of blue. The joy of yet another moment in a magic place is only slightly marred by the fear of whatever tusked creature might come rushing out of the undergrowth at any second.

There is no easy access to the land – the most obvious way-in being across a field of wheat. Simon cheerfully comments that it will be easy to clear a line around the edges for erecting a fence. I consider the work involved and question his use of the term ‘easy’. I guess it’s all relative. The prospect of carrying fence posts from the nearest driveable point to the highest part of the land makes me feel tired. The thought of removing metres and metres of blackthorn makes me feel sore. The thought of paying someone else to do all the work makes its way into my head. But we can’t afford it and anyway it probably couldn’t be done quickly enough. Plus we’d have to have some more of those dreaded French phone conversations to arrange it.

We walk back home via the llama field and Duc and Valentine sniff at Max through the gate. Nobody runs away. As we head back down towards the village, the clouds empty. Max and Simon both make it home wet, and I straggle in behind utterly drenched. It seems hard to believe that in a couple of months all the land around here will be rock hard and bone dry, when the summer drought kicks in.

After the Storm

The next morning came – just a little too soon for us weary things. However, our worries about our four-legged family had us out of bed and up to the field at the crack of dawn (well, maybe a few minutes later).

Duc and Valentine both came to greet us at the gate, although Valentine was still limping. After sharing a few happy breakfast moments with them, we decided to let Duc out of the catch-pen, and watched anxiously as he strutted straight towards the new fence dividing the field. Immediately Pedro responded, heading towards his side of the fence, head and tail up, ears back.

We waited. We watched. We held out breath.

Lots of posturing and posing by both protagonists. Duc moved one way, Pedro followed him. Duc turned back. So did Pedro. Up and down the fence line the two marched, hurling silent taunts across the wire, each trying to look taller and more threatening than his rival. Oh, if only we had a video camera!

Meanwhile Valentine, showing only a passing interest in the spectacle, remained happily in the catch-pen, munching hay. Since he did not seem in the least bit keen to join Duc in their allotted part of the field, and showed no anxiety at being on his own in the catch-pen, (an animal with a bit of sense!) we thought we’d leave him in there for a little longer, to ensure he didn’t move around too much, and hopefully give his foot a chance to heal.

Valentine spent the day either kushed or eating. Duc spent the day either posing or eating. Pedro spent all day ‘on guard’ at the fence line, apparently unable to relax at all. By the end of the day, my sympathies had transferred from the victims of the massacre, to poor uptight Pedro, driven by instinct, a slave to his hormones, bearing the lonely burden of being The Stud Male.

Deciding that overt hostilities had ceased (albeit temporarily), and that the new fence was doing its job, we turned our minds to the next immediate problem of getting some more hay from somewhere. We were down to the last of the bales that Mike and Sue had kindly given us to ‘keep the llamas going until we got sorted’ (ha!) and there was very little grass left in Duc and Valentine’s side of the field.

Simon groaned. Another delightful challenge of our new life lay ahead – telephone conversations in French, as he tried to find someone, somewhere who could sell us a load of hay immediately. I really ought to do something about improving my French language skills, so Simon doesn’t have to do all the communicating. But then if I did, it would be me having to make these phone calls….

Bad Day at Black Rock

This is a strange life. Just when you think you’ve got it sussed, fate steps in to wipe that smug smile of your face.

Wednesday morning dawned sunny and clear. A good day for our first llama walk we thought. Having created a marvellous contraption for enclosing individual llamas in a small space, so as to make haltering easier (nay – even possible!), we thought we’d try out its effectiveness.

Things went quite well to start with. Between Simon and myself, a long piece of rope, and a big piece of wood (designed to be a kitchen unit worktop, but adapted by us cheapskates to become a sort of gate) we managed to persuade Duc into the small space, where he kindly stood calmly while Simon put on his halter and lead. Next up – Valentine. Well, he’d twigged as to what was going on, and was not quite so easy to catch, but still I found myself in a small space with him, and easily got his halter on. Piece of cake. Until I tried to attach the lead to it.

Maybe he didn’t like the colour we’d chosen for his lead (pastel shades for the girls, bold primaries for the boys – bright red for Valentine). Maybe he didn’t feel like a walk. Whatever the reason, he decided to test our catch-pen enclosure design at its most obvious weak point, putting his head underneath the ‘gate’ and spectacularly lifting it off its hinges. Yeah, well, I’d actually seen that one coming in my imagination as we were constructing it, but Simon, ever the optimist, had thought they’d be unlikely to try it.

So, Valentine, all shaken up (and a little bit pleased with himself, no doubt) was not in the least bit inclined to let me attach a lead to him, and we decided just to take out Duc for a short wander on his own. Which he seemed to enjoy, particularly since he managed to get his gob round some lush, sweet grass – a rare commodity in his over-grazed field.

On our return, Simon went ahead to open the gate, and Duc took the opportunity to try to pull my arm out of its shoulder socket. I think he was trying to get away, back to the lovely grass, but I had learned my llama-walking lessons well, and with a very from grip on the lead, there was no way I was gonna let go, and, triumphant at last, I led him back into the field. However, with hindsight, I wonder now if Duc had a premonition about what was about to happen next.

And what happened next was not a pretty sight.


The moment Duc got back into the field, Pedro, our ‘stud’ male, who up until this point had been a bit of a gentle (if aloof) giant, went on the attack. Head down, biting Duc’s legs; head up, spitting and neck-wrestling Duc to the ground; all the while making the most amazingly unattractive noises. This was a Pedro we had never seen before and suddenly his huge size and weight became overtly apparent. All I could do was stand transfixed in horror, calling to Duc to run away and come back to the catch pen. But would he submit? Would he hell! He was not behaving as a gelded male should. He was behaving like a sex-crazed football supporter after 10 pints of Best. Strutting, and posing and spitting and hanging around Fatma (the obvious cause of it all – on heat again, following the birth of her baby). He was getting a hammering, but he just couldn’t back down.

Eventually, god only knows how, we managed to steer the rumbling herd (yes they were all in there somehow, as if the girls were trying to break it up or something) towards the catch pen, and Duc, briefly distracted by the attraction of his other great love (food) ran in through the gate, with enough of a space between him and Pedro for us to slam it shut and break them up. Peace did not return though.

Duc tested out our fencing and gate construction, trying to jump over the gate, and when that failed, trying to push his way through the fencing. For once, we felt justified in having done such an OTT job on the fencing. It held, and Duc resorted to anxious pacing along the fence line, posing and snorting, and making a sort of “you’re lucky I can’t get over this fence” sound to Pedro.

After examining the blood on Duc’s legs, and deciding the wounds were probably superficial, we stood (shaking) at the fence between the rivals and contemplated What the Bloody Hell to Do Now? Fencing the other bit of rough land would take days. Keeping Duc in the small catch-pen on his own seemed an unlikely option – he was SO uptight, I thought he might explode or have a heart attack or something. The only possible solution was to split the field and make a new (very strong) fence down the middle.

Luckily we still had some fence posts and some wire netting left over from our earlier work, and Simon set to, banging in fence posts (with a speed and strength I had never thought possible – it’s amazing how useful adrenalin can be sometimes) while I stayed (very nervously) in the catch pen with Duc, trying to calm him down, and discourage him from trying to get out - his hot, snorting breath in my face suddenly seeming more scary than endearing.

“OK. Ok… It’s all under control. We have a plan. We have the necessary materials and know-how. It’ll all be fine.” Simon heads back to the house to man-handle the evil, heavy roll of wire into the land rover to bring up to the field. I stay between Duc and Pedro, to keep Pedro away from the catch-pen fence, literally out of spitting distance.

But then…Oh bloody crap! Pedro is attacking Valentine! Poor, sweet, submissive Valentine is getting the macho treatment, and even though he is kushing with his tail up over his back in an obvious, “You win, mate!” pose, Pedro is not leaving him alone. Much screaming – some of it Pedro’s, some of it Valentine’s, most of it mine. Visions of carnage. Visions of trampled llama babies, and lifeless, bloodied llama corpses. “Come on Valentine! Run for it! This way!”

Simon, fresh from his restful 15 minutes humping a massive roll of heavy wire uphill, plunges into the mayhem. Shouting manfully, with much arm-waving and probably unconsidered bravado, Simon approaches the fray as if it were a dog-fight – intent on establishing his position as the Alpha male. My visions of carnage expand to include lifeless, bloodied husband bodies, while my brain whirrs wildly searching for the French words to explain to the Emergency Services (Damn, what IS the French Emergency Number???) that my husband has been attacked by a rampant llama stud.

Amazingly, it works. Valentine, sensing impending mortality, stampedes down the hill, in my general direction, with Pedro in hot pursuit, and the rest of the gang close behind. Before he has the chance to veer off in an unhelpful direction, Simon grabs his halter and hurtles towards the catch pen. With my body between Duc and the drama in front of me, I get the gate open just wide enough for Simon to shove Valentine through the gap. Then Simon, expanding to the proportions of a Super Hero, turns to face-off Pedro, while Valentine, bloody and panting, collapses into a kushed position in front of the hay, and starts chomping. Comfort eating, I think.

What a day! What a life! Simon returns to join us in the sanctuary of the catch pen, and asks casually if I’m still happy that we’re following this dream. A moment’s consideration. “Would you rather be dealing with this, or asbestos in a primary school?” I retort. Discussion over, we wipe the sweat from our collective brow, and return to the Task In Hand.

Duc is a little happier now that he has a buddy with him in the pen. Valentine is a little happier that he is still alive. Pedro is a little happier that he has all the women and most of the field to himself. Fatma is chewing grass and pretending it is all nothing at all to do with her.

The rest of the day (which I think must have been nice and sunny as we both got sun burnt faces) passes in the concentrated effort of constructing a separating fence, whilst monitoring Pedro’s whereabouts, and trying to be polite to the endless stream of naïve passers-by who come to look at the lovely llamas and ask inane questions. In French.

When the fence is finished (no way through – it’s a good job we made two entrances, one at each end of the field) we review the situation. Duc and Valentine have been penned up all day, and Duc has been pacing the boundary endlessly, looking for a way out. We decide it is safe to let them into their newly enclosed third of the field. Out they come.

But Valentine is limping, and as he puts weight on his front, left foot, it oozes blood from a nasty hole on the outside. Wish we had some antiseptic. Wish we had any idea at all what to do. We decide in the end that Valentine should be kept in a small space to stop him walking about, and he seems happy to come back into the pen and lie down. But we don’t want to leave him alone, and we’re not convinced that Pedro and Duc won’t have a go at each other over or through our new fence, so Duc has to come back into the pen for the night as well.

As it gets dark, we return to the house suffering the after effects of adrenalin overdoses, tension and sheer hard work. Am I still glad we pursued this dream? Ask me in the morning.

Ahh!

A picture is worth a thousand words . . . .


Young llamas - one of eight months, one of eight days