After talking to a large animal vet back in November, I knew Jonathan didn’t have much time left, but I wasn’t sure exactly what the end would look like for him. He’s had a couple more of those fainting spells, but on those occasions I was able to help him up. But last week he was uninterested in his feed, then on Thursday our neighbor who borrows barn space from us came by and found him lying on the barn floor, refusing to get up. It was very obvious he was suffering, so the neighbor offered to have his son-in-law, who is good at such things, come over to put him down. A few years ago, we rented an earth-mover to do a few things, and Grace dug a big hole out front we were planning to use to put a transplanted rhododendron in. But due to miscommunication, she dug the hole much too deep, and due to other issues we never got the rhododendron, so we’ve had a pit large enough for a llama out there ever since. I therefore accepted the neighbor’s help, and he used his tractor to bury Jonathan in the pit. He had a good life, and it was his time, but it’s going to seem rather strange to have no llamas around for the first time in 20 years. And now that Trip and Speck are the only two beings left who moved here with me from Oklahoma, it does contribute to the strange yet not upsetting feeling that my world is contracting, as it so often does as we move slowly toward the day when we, too, must pass.
Archive for June 16th, 2026
Diary #833
Posted in Diary, Philosophy, tagged animals, Grace, Oklahoma, psychology, Sunset on June 16, 2026| Leave a Comment »
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