It’s the first week of summer here and, as a teacher, that means this is my first week of summer break – a time I have been looking forward to since moving to our new farm in early April. A quiet time to get to know my alpacas and llamas better, and a time of rest and relaxation.

Instead, there was a llama at my door at 8:30 this morning – yup, you heard me – hanging out on the side porch looking for breakfast rather than inside the pen with the 7 males of similar species. She’s proven to be quite the escape artist in her two weeks with us, and stubborn as an ass; although as far as we know there is no donkey blood coursing through her veins.

I casually walked out to feed the boys this morning presuming she would follow me in search of grain, and I would simply walk her back into the pen. The plan was flawless. Or so it seemed, until she decided that the grass on the top of the hill was much more desirable. Have I mentioned that I live on 40 wooded acres and she had access to every corner? Yea, it was a great revelation for me too! Here I am, nine buckets of grain in hand and a very happy llama munching on a nearby tree.

Yup, this is going great! She followed the bucket right to the gate of the pen, and then turned tail and headed to the trees. Okay, it was going to be a long morning.

Meanwhile, my whippet – the other female in a testosterone based world – was inside barking her fool head off as she wanted to help catch mmama llama. Eventually, I gave in, and this is what happened…Clearly, the dog was going to be as much help as a girlfriend with a warm mug of coffee on a cold winter’s day. These two had decided to hang and chat for the morning. I decided leaving the two of them on their own was perhaps my best bet. I even brought in reinforcements in the form of my favorite llama whisperer, Abigail. She, too, only added to the drama. I was sure within minutes the three of them would be gossiping like the twelve hens in the back pasture about my ineptness.

There was only one answer – I needed more testosterone. I know, it seems so wrong; especially when the young male in question is my third son and a self-proclaimed beast wrangler, but I had to march my sorry behind down to his room and gather the courage to ask him to wrangle a loose female llama.

At first he chuckled, then he laughed and in the end he downright guffawed at the thought of being in line with the nasty spit of said llama. However, never one to give up on a good challenge, he happily marched to the pen. This was how he believed catching the beast would work best.Now I was the one guffawing. Darn if that nasty female beast didn’t wander right on over to his chair to check out his headphones. He reached out to stroke her neck and instead to taking off, she NUZZLED his neck!!! Truly, this was a llama with love on her mind.

As soon as she had her neck firmly planted on his shoulders, he reached around with the hidden halter, strapped her up and walked her straight into the pen. She was not amused. In all, it took the boy about 5 minutes to secure her behind a locked door.  I would have liked to have screamed and spit. In the end I had no choice, I had to give him the win –  Hmmph!