Five years ago when we moved out here, the only fence on the property was a barbed wire fence around the perimeter. The house sits on the right of the driveway near the road with a huge lovely live oak in the back yard. Beyond the house is the shed and behind that is the barn. Our horses moved here with us so the first order of business was to build some cross fences to make pastures. We left the barbed wire on the perimeter and added fences to make four connected pastures. Our horses had never lived with barbed wire so I was initially concerned about their safety. We made the pastures wide enough and had few enough horses in each pasture that I didn’t think it would be a problem. It hasn’t been.

We built goat pens behind the barn in an area that used to have raised garden plots. I left all the overgrowth so the goats would have some browse and they loved it. We used no-climb horse fencing with a top board for stability, just like the pasture fences. The goats couldn’t use the horse pastures since they would be able to get through the barbed wire but they had a nice shelter and a safely fenced off area of their own.

Over the years we have added fences here and there. We fenced off the back yard, added an arena and connected the goat pens to the other pastures. This spring we finally added the safe no-climb horse fencing to the entire perimeter. Now the fiber animals can safely be put in any of the pastures with no danger of getting caught in or cut by the barbed wire or worse, getting loose.

Our last bit of fencing has connected the pastures on the outer perimeter of the property to the barn. I’m not sure why we didn’t do that in the first place. Well, actually I do know why. I wanted to be able to drive around the barn. It’s useful to be able to do that but it means there is no moving animals into the barn without herding them or haltering and leading them. The horses are easy to halter and lead. The goats are easy to herd, particularly since they will follow you anywhere if you have treats in your hand. The llamas and alpacas are a whole different story. They are difficult to catch and don’t lead well. They are terrified of being trapped so they ought to be easy to herd but they are very fast and once they figure out where you want them to go, they go anywhere but there.

I had built a connection from the goat’s pens to the barn with moveable panels and it works great to move animals into and out of the barn. Unfortunately, the panels are pretty much stationary. It’s difficult to move them enough to get the tractor in there to mow and driving through there is impossible. I’m excited that we have finally replaced my panels with real fences that have large gates. Now with the gates closed, the pastures are connected to the barn and with the gates open I can drive around the barn. Cool.

Early this spring I opened a zip-lock bag full of cotton seeds, planted them and thus becoming a cotton farmer. The bag came from my friend Anita and included seeds from some of the many bolls of cotton that she had grown and spun. There were several different types of white cotton seeds as well as seeds from green and brown cotton. I tossed all the seeds into one of my round garden bins, spread them out evenly spaced and poked them into the ground. They sprouted! I have little enough experience planting anything that any time a seed sprouts I consider it a success. And they grew. As the plants got larger I thinned out the weakest looking ones so they didn’t get too crowded. And they kept growing. This is so cool.

The big operations always treat cotton as an annual. When the cotton bolls are ready to be picked, the fields are sprayed with a defoliant so the leaves don’t get mixed in with the cotton.   Once the cotton has been harvested, the plants are plowed under. I think the reason is to reduce the chance of perpetuating boll weevils, nematodes and other pests. Cotton is actually a perennial and if you don’t strip all the leaves off can live for several years. Our occasional very cold winters can kill them but they can take a mild winter in stride. I saw my first mature cotton plant at the Museum for Contemporary Craft in Houston last year. It is a gorgeous plant with wide glossy leaves and flowers of pink and white. The plant produces flowers throughout the growing season so you can pick ripe bolls throughout the late summer and fall. How cool it that?

The big cotton producers are not happy with little growers like me who plant cotton, particularly the colored varieties, near their fields where the wind can cause cross-pollination of different varieties. It’s one of the many reasons to check with your agricultural extension agent before you plant cotton. If I lived further south, closer to the big cotton farms along the coast, I would have done that before I planted. Since I’m at least 50 miles from the closest cotton production, I figured I was fine. I was a little tardy in calling my extension agent, but I did call. She says I’m fine. There are only three large cotton producers left in this county and they are all pretty far south of me. And she gave me some great references to check. One of them was this great article about all the insects that live on cotton plants that are actually good to have - lady bugs and spiders and wasps and all manner of creepy crawlies that will kill and eat boll weevils and other cotton pests. I itched for three days after looking at the pictures.

So I’m legal and armed with lots of great information. And now I have cotton. I started picking cotton a week ago. I check the plants every couple of days for more ripe cotton. I should have paid more attention to where I planted the different varieties. I ended up with only a couple of colored cotton plants. I probably thinned out a lot of them over the summer without realizing it.

I guess it’s time to learn how to spin cotton…..

The big day arrived. Sean (my wonderful llama shearer and part owner of Figment Ranch) loaded up my three new llamas and arrived at my house with no problems other than having to change trailers in the process. The three new boys were wearing halters and we lead them out of the trailer and into my barn. They all lead beautifully and stood calmly. It was a treat.

Guard llamas are most usually males and almost always neutered but their fighting teeth are not removed. The fighting teeth are used by males to establish dominance over competing males and thereby successfully breed with the ladies. Fighting teeth are a good thing if you are on guard. Guard llamas are not like guard dogs that will attach predators. Instead, they are watchful and if they see something they don’t like, they walk towards it with head held low in an effort to shoo the intruder out of the pasture. They are pretty good at it too because they are tall with long legs and necks so they can look pretty threatening.

This is exactly what I want my guard llamas to do – shoo off anything that comes into the pasture that might bother my herd. Here is an interesting fact of geography. I live in “rabies central” for this county. This is not something that was listed as pertinent information when we bought this place but it has been confirmed by our vet. Most of the cases of rabies in this county happen within a stone’s throw of my place. This puts a slightly different slant on the whole guard llama thing. I can’t very well put them out there to guard my herd without rabies shots. And while we’re at it, the entire herd should get rabies shots. The horses, cats and dog have always gotten rabies shots but I hadn’t thought about it for the goats, etc.

So, Sean and I walked the new llamas into a stall where I had already put out a small bit of feed. I wanted them to know where they would get fed and where the water and minerals were located. After they had eaten the feed and investigated the stall, I opened the door so they could have the run of the barn and the pens outside. From the beginning it was obvious that Smoky was in charge. He was the first to venture out of the stall, the first to look out at the pens, the first to move out and try eating the grass. All the rest of my animals were fascinated by the new arrivals so were standing at the fence watching. Smoky had an excellent view of the entire herd and watched them all like he was trying to memorize them.

Smoky watched the fence line, the tree line, the other animals, me, my dog, everything. Shiraz was interested in everything but with the air of someone not on guard duty right now. Stash spent more time watching me than anything else, like he was trying to figure out what would impact him personally.

The vet arrived the next morning. All the rabies shots were given efficiently and quickly. We ran fecals on all the animals and determined only the new guys needed to be wormed so the vet came back to handle that. I’m pretty good at giving shots to all the animals but giving oral worming medication to adult llamas does not fall into the category of “Penny can do this.” They have long necks and long legs and are very agile. And of course there is the whole spitting thing. Fortunately, my vet is young, strong and has lots of experience. He got them all wormed pretty quickly with no spitting. And then the new llamas got to go out in the pasture with Tucker, the alpacas and the goats……