Mothering outdoors with meaning

I can still remember when the opportunity to learn to work with alpacas came up.

I was mothering a 2 year old full-time, working part time as a yoga teacher and had no idea how I could fit that into my schedule but I knew I had to say yes. I had wanted to work with animals all of my life. So I did.

Jump and the net will appear.

The very first thing we did together was a 12 hour shearing day. I kept her on my back for the majority of it, worried she would get in the way or hurt herself but after a while she was desperate to join in and when I let her she was amazing. Calming the alpacas, patting their heads, desperately wanting to help with every task.

We’ve been farming together for two years now and at nearly five years old she is now genuinely helpful.

A while back I read a beautiful book called Rituals of Respect by Inga Bolan, an anthropological exploration of the lives of the high altitude camelid herders and within it she shared that children are given herding responsibility for their alpacas and llamas at six years old. Heading out alone or with friends or siblings to move their animals to pasture, watch over them, protect them from predators and then herd them back into the corral at night.

I found it hard to imagine at first but the further along I go raising my own little herder, I see that the more responsibility and trust we give, the more responsible and trustworthy they become.

I was herding our girls back from free roaming the farm the other day and she got into the right positions, used the herding calls and stopped stragglers from changing the direction of the herd. It was the first time I’d given her that much responsibility and she smashed it.

It’s not been easy. The first year I’d have her in the back carrier for up to three hours a day and then at nap time I’d be pushing her around the farm getting her to sleep and then moving her around the paddocks as I worked.

During the second year she started being more independent and wanted to help with everything. This inevitably slowed everything down to a snail’s pace and I wasn’t always able to be patient especially when we were time pressured but as often as I could I let her try everything, even if it meant more work.

And it has paid off!

As we are about to enter our third year farming together I now have a budding shepherdess with me.

She portions out feed, feeds the alpacas, barrows hay, poo picks, makes up our natural cleaning product, scrubs troughs, offers the alpacas showers on hot days, sprays citronella onto them, clicker trains, herds, mucks out the shelters and notices if any of the alpacas aren’t quite themselves.

The other day she even spotted an injury I hadn’t noticed yet.

And of course there are challenging times - you know how this age group like to challenge and push boundaries - but these would happen wherever we were and I am so proud of our smallest farmer and so grateful that I get to mother outdoors with meaning.

Carly x

Leave a comment