Bad time for the old Work Ethic the past few days. Quiet pen. Excited mind but without orderly thoughts to record.
Ranger and Gunter have returned for a 10-day visit. Their owners made Gunter a pen outdoors in the courtyard, thinking that the nights were warm enough now that he can sleep outdoors safely. (He shouldn't go lower than 60 degrees F.) But although our days are in the high 80s, Gunter's first night out there dropped to 50, and last night--horrors--it must have reached nearly 40, because both greenhouse thermometers read 45 at 6:30 this morning, and we needed extra sleeping blankets, and even the llamas slept up inamong the trees (on the ridge) instead of in the cooler flatter pasture. The weather Web site says 56-58 for this week's lows, but apparently we have different ideas about our weather back here in the hollers.
At 7 Gunter crept out from his sleeping place and found a spot of sun to heat up in. I was amazed he could even move. Between the temps and his vulnerability to predators without a good fence I've been worried. So today I'll buy a heat lamp in Alturas and make him a sleeping area in the greenhouse. He can graze in the courtyard all day, but once he conks out for the night my brother and I will lift him into his carrying tub and then lug him to a heated corner indoors. I already have a coughing llama. I don't want a giant tortoise with pneumonia, as well.
As for Lorenzo's cough--I'm told this happens in drought years. Llamas wallow in dust and inhale it and then cough a lot. He's been doing this every morning, and it's very dry out there in the pasture, where there was a stream last year, nothing this year. Over time, if it persists, a "foreign object" pneumonia can develop, if he's inhaled something he just can't dislodge, so I should pay close attention through the summer now.
I'm developing a new Theory of the Universe and spend my morning writing time in thought instead of at the page. I can't record it until I can see the whole thing; today I'll make an assay at an essay. But not here. Not yet. I have to organize my ideas coherently, sanely, so not everyone will click away in disgust.
I received a number of phone calls yesterday from long-lost friends--one of them someone I haven't seen or spoken with in over three years!--and this afternoon I'll have lunch in town with another friend who rehabs raptors. We haven't shared any quality time for years, now, and I'm looking forward to seeing her.
I planted moonflower seeds in planters near the greenhouse door last night. And this morning I found two brilliant big floppy tissue-papery poppies, one orange, one saffron yellow, blooming in the herb garden.
8:08:01 AM 
|
