Sad Of Spirit

There's a new S.O.S. for you - Sad Of Spirit.  I'm sending out that S.O.S. right now, cause that's how I feel.

I know there are bigger griefs out there.  Losing a friend, a family member - any people we're attached to.

But we get attached to our animals too.  My Lady Llama lost her mother while still quite young, and I became her surrogate mama.  I was so looking forward to seeing her being a mama.

Instead, I spent the day digging a grave for her baby.

Most of the time we compost animals.  That sounds terrible to some people, but it's really not much different than the system they have in New Orleans, where bodies are usually placed inside the walls of the above ground tombs. Because of the hot, subtropical climate, the tomb then effectively becomes an oven, and the high heat causes the body to decompose rapidly in a process that has been compared to a slow cremation. Within about a year, only bones are left.

Proper composting works pretty much the same way. No smell, just an above ground burial with quick decomposition to bones.

Even though that's the usual procedure here, and I have done it before with animals I love, somehow I just couldn't do it this time. I wanted a little grave site where I could plant a rosebush or some other flowering plant on top.

But roses need sunshine. We have a lot of trees, and most of the sunny spaces are garden or pasture. Tree roots are another problem. Springs and a high water table are yet another.  I tried 3 or 4 different places before I finally found a suitable place and kept digging.

Appropriately enough, it was raining when I started. That fit my mood pretty well, but it makes it really hard digging a hole in wet clay.  It took a mighty long time to dig a hole a couple feet deep and long, and maybe a foot wide.

A very long time.

I stopped, rested, and started again.  With a shovel and a post-hole digger, I slowly made the hole bigger and bigger.  Digging is the kind of physical activity that really aggravates my chronic pain.  I'll pay for it the next couple of days, but for today, digging a grave was my project. I didn't get much else done but essential critter chores.

When The Farmer got home from work, he helped me put the little llama baby in the grave, and covered her up for me.  Later, after the dirt has settled some, I'll find a nice plant to put there.

That little cria was 25 pounds of black haired cuteness that never drew breath.  Long neck, sweet little head, long eyelashes, long legs.  A doll baby that never lived.

Yep, definitely S.O.S.

Tagged as: llama