Dad was a trader of sorts and brought home all kinds of interesting things. The day he brought home a llama really messed up my happy little animal kingdom.

Riding home on the school bus, I always looked forward to seeing my horses grazing in the front pasture as the bus pulled up. That particular day the horses were nowhere to be seen and, standing alone at the middle of the fence, was a hideous looking camel without a hump. In a tizzy as to where the horses were and what this “thing” was doing in their space, I confronted Dad. “Oh, no problem,” he said, “I traded a shotgun for the llama and it kind of spooked the horses and they ran off.”

Well, finding horses was first on the list, and then I moseyed out for a meet-and-greet with the new fellow to see just what was so scary about him. All the horses grouped together in the corner, watching to see if I would be eaten alive and ready to jump fence again at any moment.

As we eyed each other up, the lama didn’t look too terrifying. His eyes were kind of pretty, and standing there looking like a rag-doll miniature camel, he didn’t seem too threatening.

His hair was all matted and smelly, so I thought a quick brushing would make us jolly good friends in a hurry.

Oh my, was that a mistake! Llama started making a funny noise in his throat while putting his head way up and back, and then—“splewie”—I was spit on with gunk that smelled worse than rotten goose eggs.

That little kindergarten antic immediately ended our friendship, and I went crying to Dad to please remove the fake camel from my horses’ pasture.

Back then, no one in the county had ever even seen a llama, much less sported one on their property, so Dad was a little miffed that he couldn’t display the new creature out in the open for all the neighbors to gawk at. “Get a halter and we’ll put him in the barn” was a lot easier said than done. We both found out in a real hurry why the horses took off—Llama viewed everything that walked, no matter if they had two legs or four, as a “female llama.” While Dad was being “prospected and circled” by his newfound pet, he yelled at me to run and grab a long rope, but I couldn’t move; it was the most hilarious thing I’d ever seen, and I was laughing so hard I was crying.

Mom came down to see what all the commotion was about, and Llama must have viewed her as a delicacy as she made a fast U-turn, running for the house with him loping close behind. Losing her apron and slippers, she made it inside just in time as the llama circled the front porch. Out the kitchen window came a spiel of swear words at Dad I had never heard before, and he just stood there with his mouth open—it was great!

Llama was placed in “solitary confinement” in the extra cow pasture by the river and seemed happy enough by himself. We didn’t see any sign of squirrels or coon around there for a long, long time.

A few months later, the neighbor from across the river came to say a cow of his was stuck in the mud on our side of the bank. He asked Dad if it was OK to go down there to get the cow out, and with a raised eyebrow and a smirk, Dad said, “Sure, go ahead.”

For as long as I can remember, this neighbor and Dad didn’t care for each other too much. I think it all started when Dad was aiming at a varmint and shot the window out of the neighbor’s pickup from our side of the river.

This was going to be good—better than fireworks on the Fourth of July—as Dad and I pretended to fix a fence within eyesight of the river bank and the extra cow pasture. There was only one way in and out of the pasture, so we lollygagged around by the gate, waiting as the neighbor’s head disappeared over the edge of the river bank. About five minutes later, we could hear the fellow hollering, and over the bank he came a-running with his shirt half torn off and Llama close on his heels.

I’ve never seen anyone clear a gate like he did and keep running without missing a step! In passing, we heard him yell something to the tune of “Keep the %&*# cow! You people have a he-devil, vomiting deer in your pasture!”

Dad traded the llama off in a big hurry before the sheriff showed up. I never did find out how the deal went down, but it was awesome to see Mom’s face through the kitchen window as Dad walked up with the box of tame baby skunks…