So, here I am back in the Land of Dreams, and it is raining. And when it is raining, thoughts turn to inside activities, like putting in new electric sockets in the bathroom, and writing blog posts, and napping. So Simon has thought about the electrical work, and I have thought about having a nap, and neither of us have done either, and bloody hell, the day is nearly over already. I suspect the existence of an inverse correlation between rain and time. And we both thought about writing a blog post, but neither of us could think of anything to write about.
Until the bucket situation occurred.
In a short gap between raindrops, I somehow managed to summon enough energy to stop thinking about napping, and start thinking about Doing Something Useful, which consisted of those exciting and hardly-at-all-repetitive tasks of llama feeding, water-bucket filling and dog-walking. And just to try to make the hardly-at-all-repetitive tasks a tad more interesting, I decided to try a different way of managing the daily challenge of feeding the lady llamas without invoking the wrath and/or greed of Mad Lenny.
Having retrieved the AWOL feed buckets from the lady llama field during Lenny’s recent incarceration in the catch-pen, I decided that I would once again use them to actually feed the lady llamas. Only, this time, I would make sure that the buckets didn’t get dragged off into the middle of the field by Lilas the bucket-stealer. So off I toddled to the bottom gate, equipped with buckets and the food and long piece of string. And of course Lenny toddled down with me, and of course he was there at the gate ready to greet me with a stomach (or three) full of spit, and a demeanour full of strop. So I hastily placated him by wedging a bucket of food (with a long piece of string tied to the handle) through the gate, and looked about me for somewhere to tie the other end of the string. And that was when I had my Bright Idea.
Instead of tying the end of the string to something sensible like a tree or even the gate itself, I tied it to the other bucket of food, which I also wedged through the gate on the other side of the central vertical bar, thinking that each bucket would act as an anchor to stop the other being pulled any significant distance from the gate. And then mightily pleased with my nifty creation, I toddled off back up the lane calling to Mad Lenny to join me, thus leaving the buckets of food free for the lady llamas waiting patiently in the wings.
And the plan worked perfectly, and all was fine and dandy. Until all the food was gone.
It’s been a while since I have spent any significant amount of time with the lady llamas, and I had somehow forgotten Lilas’ penchant for string-related naughtiness. Although I had remembered her tendency to pick up buckets by the handle and swing them about (which is why water buckets are often prematurely empty, and food buckets go walkabouts), I had forgotten that she loves String and All Things Stringy. She loves to pull my hair when my back is turned, and to pull dog leads out of my pocket. She loves to nibble and pull at the rope we use to secure gates that won’t shut properly unless tied. She likes to undo shoe laces and pull the bits of elastic out of the bottom of fleecy jackets. For a while, she even had a special ball-on-a-rope toy to play with, which of course was of no interest to her whatsoever, because she was ALLOWED to play with it, and where’s the fun in that?
So when the food was all gone, and there was nothing much to do except plod around and eat grass (BOR-ING!), Lilas decided instead to play with the string on my nifty two-bucket-gate creation. Which is why, when I was taking the dogs for a bounce around the boundaries a little while later, I was met with the hilarious-and-yet-horrifying sight of Lilas charging around the field with the string between her teeth, dragging a bucket on each end, with Elif and Capucine chasing after her making all sorts of weird and wonderful noises, and Lenny chasing after all of the them like an even madder version of his usual mad self. And just to add to the fun, Stubbs and Rufus decided to join in and charge up and down the fence line barking and yelping at the commotion afoot before them, and Duc and Valentine decided that it was all so exciting that they simply had to run up and down their side of the boundary to wind Lenny up even more.
Oh What Fun! Oh What Noise! Oh (hands in front eyes) What-the-hell-am-I-gonna-do-to-stop-Lilas-strangling-herself?! Sure enough, what had started as a game was rapidly heading in the direction of Tragedy Town, as the buckets jangled and bounced, and the string got wound around Lilas’ neck, and the more she ran, the more the scary buckets chased her, and the more she ran………
And just as I was trying (completely unsuccessfully) to envisage a scenario where I would enter the Field of Frenzy and somehow grab hold of the rampant Lilas and keep her still long enough to disentangle her neck from the string-full of scary buckets, whilst not being trampled to death by the Maddest of Mad Lennies, the very same Mad Lenny came to the rescue. He saw those scary devil buckets chasing his beloved, and he saw all his ladies upset and frightened and in flight from the terror of the chasey blackness, and he Acted. He chased harder and faster than he had ever chased before and he caught up with the buckets of evil, and without a moment’s hesitation he attacked. He dragged those malevolent buckets away from his women and in a flurry of dust and righteous anger he trampled and he stomped, and he stomped and he trampled until those buckets were well and truly dead.
As the buckets tumbled squashed and defeated down the hill, in a tangled mess of string and dead rubber, Lenny stood triumphant and proud, and amidst the heavy-breathing gratitude of his exhausted but relieved women, he claimed his new title…..
Lenny the Protector.
And just for a little while, I felt pleased that Lenny is such a stark-staring-raving-bonkers-mad llama, for his insanity undoubtedly saved the day.
Three cheers for Lenny!