I’ve been spending a lot of quiet time with the animals, getting to know the newest herd members and appreciating and loving the ones who’ve been here for a long time.
Rosie, the alpaca mama who came here with her baby, Chica, last summer, has opened up in beautiful and amazing ways. She loves to be petted and hugged. She looks into my eyes and I can see right into her heart, to the softness of who she is and the hurt that she carries. She sighs into me and I feel her unwinding, letting go of that hurt and feeling safer to be her sensitive self and know that she won’t be hurt again.
Rosie’s daughter, Chica, is a firecracker. She looks exactly like Paco, and it’s sometimes disconcerting when I look in the pasture and think it’s him. In the evenings Chica hops around the pasture like a kangaroo, making everyone laugh.
Luna, one of the big llama girls that came in the fall, is beautiful and funny with very fluffy ears that make her look like a Muppet. Her sister Star is curious about everything. When someone comes to the farm she wants to put her face in their face to see who they are and introduce herself. When I’m in the barn she’ll be outside looking in the windows to see what I’m doing. Nothing escapes her notice.
Frankie, the sweetest goat in the world, fills me with so much love I sometimes feel like I could burst. He nuzzles and kisses me and leans into me to be snuggled. Frankie is known to everyone as the love bucket.
There’s Lily and Dancer, the barn cats, both almost 18 years old and retired from barn work. Lily loves to be brushed because it’s not as easy to keep her coat clean now and she likes to look beautiful. And there’s Squeaky, the young tuxedo cat that Lily and Dancer hired a year or so ago to keep the barn in order. He’s loving and friendly to everyone he meets and he sleeps curled up with Lily and Dancer, sometimes with a protective arm over one of them.
Then there’s Bean, sweet young goat boy that I call my little giraffe because the top of his head is shaped just like one. And Blue, the Shetland Pony who wears boots on his front feet so he can walk without pain, and loves to be hugged. I could go on and on, listing each and every animal here as they are all so very special and loving and dear to me. Not one bad apple in the bunch (though they can all be naughty at times).
When I look at the amount of love that comes to me each day from these animals it is almost too much to bear. I am so blessed, and fortunate, and wealthy in the love department. My life is full and glorious because of animals and I can’t even imagine spending my life without them.
Often, I’ve not felt the same way about humans. Especially in the last few years when things have been so mean, and divisive and I too have been hateful and angry at times in a way that feels so wrong to me. I’ve been pulling away from humans and turning to the animals where I feel safe. Then something happened to restore my faith in humans.
I was in my car in line at the vaccine drive-thru to get my second shot. These are such amazingly organized events that funnel through hundreds of people in a few hours in an efficient, easy way. It was a hot day and at the beginning of the line I started smelling something burning and realized it was coming from my car. I was concerned and thought I’d get it checked out as soon as I got out of here, but as we inched forward I heard a little bit of hissing from my motor and a red thermometer light came on. What the heck is that light?
To make a long story short, my car died before I got to the vaccine station and a volunteer pushed it out of the line and into a parking space. I sat in the shade waiting to see if it would cool down when one volunteer after another came to check on me to see if I needed anything. I was concerned that I wouldn’t get my shot and one woman told me, “You’ll get your shot and we’ll get your car taken care of. We’re here to help and you’re not alone.” That woman, and all the other volunteers were angels for me that day.
My car never did start but a friend came to pick me up. When I got home, with no car and not knowing how much it would cost to fix it or if it could even be fixed at all, I felt like the most blessed person in the world. The people who helped me had truly restored my faith in the human race. They had each gone out of their way not only to help me but to be kind and loving and gentle to me. I felt so grateful and fortunate and just blessed to have gone through this experience with each of them.
As it turned out my car had a broken fan and it was not an expensive repair. The gift I got was worth far more than the cost of that repair. I realized how alone and vulnerable and withdrawn from the human race I’d become and now, I was back in there, brought back to life by a bunch of people who were volunteering their time to get us all vaccinated. And I remembered that not only would my life be unlivable without animals, I need humans too.