My husband, the Artist, loves animals. He loves the alpacas. He, himself, is so tenderhearted that he probably never would have chosen a business that brought with it the inevitability of animals dying. We all feel sad when an alpaca passes away on the farm, but I’ve long suspected that the Artist takes it the hardest.

In recent days, I had been nursing an alpaca that our vet suspected had developed a gastric ulcer (perhaps more than one). To paraphrase a beloved and revered vet in the alpaca industry, “When an alpaca develops a stomach ulcer, she usually goes on to alpaca heaven.”  We had been treating our alpaca girl, throwing everything but the kitchen sink at her trying to save her…but nothing seemed to be working. Sad, resigned, I continued to treat her, and to try.

On this particular morning,  the kids had just gotten off to school, and I was hoping to take a little bit of time at the house before heading to the barn. The Artist was doing farm chores that morning to give me a break. I had just settled in to pay some bills and do some seriously neglected paperwork, when I realized that the Artist was heading out there first thing. Oh no! I jumped up and threw on some clothes.

Murphy’s Law. What Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong. You know how this law applies to your life right? I believe this life applies in spades on a farm.

Remember how I said that the Artist is hit the hardest by death? Well, he also has the uncanny, extremely unfortunate ability to happen upon about 80% of animals that have died as well. Luckily alpacas are pretty hearty creatures and it doesn’t happen a lot, but I swear when it does happen HE always seems to be the one to be there. Because he’s the one who’s the most heartbroken. It really stinks.

I had been working the farm all week, and was really looking forward to the Artist doing some chores for me that morning so I could stay inside (where it was warm & cozy) past 9am, but I did not have a good feeling about my little ulcer girl so I flew out the door. I wanted to get to the patient before he did.

Whew! I could see that the Artist was still at the boys’ barn. Yes! Bullet dodged! I scurried to the main barn, said a quick good morning to my herdsire Magnum, and went to check on my little girl with the ulcer.

I stopped still in front of her stall.

She was all alone in there. dead.

“Damn,” I said, tears welling up in my eyes.

I stomped my foot just a little. My breath made a cloud in front of me from the cold.

I went into my office and wrote “deceased” on her paperwork with a wry sense of satisfaction that I had gotten some paperwork accomplished.

Then I went in search of a tarp with which I could move her sad, lifeless body.

I found a tarp in the shed. As I was coming back with the tarp I saw the Artist. Seeing the tarp, he knew that my patient had died. We exchanged sympathetic looks, and I headed back for the barn.

As I was walking through the gates and closing them behind me, I was thinking about millions of things. Meanwhile my brain was processing these additional thoughts as I looked at the alpacas as I passed by them:

baby alpaca. grey alpaca. tiny alpaca. there are no babies in that pen. wait. there should be no babies in that pen.

Finally my brain focused in on what it was trying to see and process:

We had been blessed with a new baby alpaca that morning!

Even though his dam, Rose Point, had not been due for three whole weeks, she had had a healthy rose gray baby boy!

The elation we felt was a balance to the sadness of losing our little girl from the ulcer. The rainy day was saved by the sunshine at the end. Does the sunshine make up for all the rain? No, but they work together to form the very fabric of life. They are woven together, like a tapestry. It is impossible to have one without the other.

I believe that farming is a metaphor for life, a venue for life to play out on nature’s stage. There is death and there is life. And what a blessed day it is when you can see all these things at work in the back yard before 10:30AM.

February 11th, 2010 | Tags: alpaca, alpaca farm, alpaca farming, Alpacas, cria, farm, farms, rain, sunshine | Category: Alpacas, The Alpaca Lifestyle | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL