Because I continue to overestimate my llamas' respect for informal agreements, I opened the pasture gate to let everyone graze a bit around the neighbour's barn. This area has a fence that can be jumped over pretty easily, but I was going to be sitting there watching them the whole time—well, watching them intermittently while reading a book, but if I glance up every 2 minutes, realistically how could four slow herbivores
If you would like to join me on this long and patient llama hunt, I have prepared a crude map of the terrain so you can get your bearings. We are starting on the road right next to the neighbour's barn.
My first instinct was to resolve the situation through diplomacy. If the animals wanted to slightly broaden the grazing perimeter, well, okay; I could let them eat on the side of the road. Unfortunately, only Pirlouit supported this plan.
He kept trying to stop and eat, while the llamas had places to go.
So I followed them along the road for quite a while, patiently waiting to reach the wider stretch where I knew I could sprint ahead, overtake everyone and force them to turn around. Not yet a full victory but at least I'd feel like I was regaining some influence over events.
But Pampérigouste is familiar with my manoeuvres, and she turned around of her own initiative before we reached this spot, left the road, and led everyone into the woods for a bit (and almost managed to shake me off as I kept getting slowed down by brambles, being the only person in this situation who was wearing clothes); then she re-emerged on the road near the barn, and went into the neighbour's pasture. Which is quite vast, and goes all the way down to the torrent.
So naturally, Pampe went all the way down to the torrent—following a route of astonishingly unnecessary complexity and glancing back now and then to check that her followers had not lost faith.
The other animals clearly felt that once you've reached a vast and lush pasture, the logical next step is to stay and eat (while Pampe sees it as evidence that vaster and lusher pastures remain to be discovered.)
... that is, until we reached the torrent and I finally managed to turn everyone around, back in the direction of their pasture. At that exact moment, Pampe realised grazing was an urgent priority.
Once we finally reached the road, with Pampe bringing up the rear at an aggressively leisurely pace, I figured that if I got the rest of the herd back in their pasture, she would grudgingly follow.
The other animals briefly hesitated (it was getting late; their pasture was right there; they don't like spending the night in unfamiliar places) before recommitting to Pampe.
We could have actually followed the road in this direction all the way back to my house, and therefore the other, upper gate to their pasture, bringing this expedition to a neat and peaceful conclusion. Pampe solved this problem by throwing herself into the woods.
At this stage I feel that my updated map will be more informative than human language.
(I made an attempt to restore coherence to our journey through the use of directional arrows.)
When we somehow ended up back in the neighbour's pasture after an exciting (not for me) chase through the woods, I admitted defeat, and texted my neighbour to let him know my animals would be spending the night in his pasture due to circumstances not meaningfully under my control, but I would be back on the case in the morning to get them home. Having met Pampe, he didn't ask any further questions.
I didn't really believe that the animals might magically return on their own during the night, but still I left the pasture gate open—but only the one near my house; the other gate by the neighbour's pasture remained closed because I just couldn't face the slope again.
And somehow, the next morning, when I opened my window, everyone was here.
I should add that my neighbour later found several tufts of llama wool caught on his fence in various places, allowing us to partially reconstruct the llamas' return journey (that's me in the background attempting to get a statement from his cow.)
I have therefore updated my map once more to illustrate (in green) the final stage of this expedition, based on physical evidence and on my partial understanding of Pampe's worldview.
But really the moral of this story is that giving up and going to bed works. Always give up!
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