On Luna

Luna is our guard llama.

Llamas can have an invaluable trait, to protect and guard the farm. Not every llama has the interest or instinct to do this, or if it is in there somewhere the assertion of this trait can highly vary. Luna has got it.

I will never forget Luna being trained by our past guard llama, Curnonnus, to do the job.

For many years the dominant guard for our farm was a llama named Curnonnus. People often asked us about his name, it comes from Celtic folk lore. Curnonnus was a "guardian of nature". Curnonnus was a loyal and loving great uncle to every kid goat on our farm. He truly bonded with the goats. I will always have an image of him sitting under a tree, getting some shade in the midday sun, completely surrounded by all our goats. The kid goats playing around him and often on him, or sleeping in the safety of his side. Curnunnos was a master guard. He patrolled the fence lines. When he stared in a direction, you knew he saw something....sometimes you could find what he was looking at, and sometimes with only your naked eye you couldn't, but you knew something was there. There were times he announced things with a snort and a bugle call like humming noise (sounds like a contradiction, but you'd have to hear it to know). There were also times that he just rounded up all the goats and put them into a corner of the field or into the barn. He did this by galloping around and using his long neck like a boom (of a ship) to visually push them into a direction -- where he was looking usually. An awing sight, but one that also brought alarm.

One summer when Luna was old enough -- Curnonnus decided -- he taught her to be a guard like him. Over a period of several weeks he made her do exercises of rounding up all the goats. He snorted, spit and nipped at her hind to scold her if she didn't do as he indicated. Some of the non-verbals were beyond what we under stood. But, boy 'o boy, we understood when she goofed up. On one such occasion, near the beginning of these events, Curnonnus stood in the corner he wanted Luna to bring all the goats to, Luna ran around in a large looping pattern to scoop up all the goats and get them to run to the corner with Curnonnus. Well, she left about three of them, yearling goats -- more inexperienced with patterns themselves, out in the field. When she came to the corner, like mission accomplished, chest beaming, Curnonnus threw a fit. Screeched at her, wrangled his neck wildly -- like and excited person talking with their hands, spit at her face and nipped at her tush. Luna ran back out there and struggled to get the mixed up nervous goats, but she got them.... and all immediately calmed down.

Honestly, I don't think she ever made another huge mistake like that again... even thought these exercises continued to go on for some time. The two of them patrolled fence lines together, and one after the other; ran from one corner of a field to another, made occasional noises; and stared off at distant focal points as if they had laser pointers on the tips of their noses.

I have an ache in my heart to have to report it, but Curnonnus is no longer with us. However, he did his job elegantly and lovingly. Now Luna is a very fine guard. She is priceless, and we should always remember that.