author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Attached is a picture of epic alpaca adorableness, which will be explained shortly.

Despite the season being more or less over, today turned out to be a farm Monday after all. The volunteer coordinator (hi, Steph!) texted me that she could use some help processing herbs, so I said sure. That's how I ended up with hands full of mugwort and clothes covered in purple basil powder.

Herb processing happens up at the top of the barn, where things are nice and dry. (They are not, however, warm, at least not without electrical help. I took my tea breaks based on when I lost sensation in my fingertips.) There is a large supply of screens of varying gauge, plenty of tarps, plenty of bins and buckets, and enough dried herbs to make you sneeze multiple times.

My first task wasn't the sneezy one. The dried mugwort leaves were for the most part still whole. All I had to do was sift through them and remove any flower buds and large stems.

No, the sneezy task was to do with the basil, which had been crushed into very small pieces--a coarse powder, if you will. My task was to get the dirt and dust off of it. This sounds like one of Baba Yaga's ultimatums to Vasilisa the Beautiful, doesn't it? "Separate these poppy seeds from these grains of soil by the time I get home, or I'll eat you up, bones and all!" Although you can do a fairly decent job of it with a low-powered electric fan, which will blow the dust farther off than it will the poppy seeds. We ended up doing variations of that trick with the basil bits: first I'd toss handfuls of it into the air above a tarp-covered table so that the dust would billow off of it (at which point I tried not to breathe), then I'd rapidly sift the pile with my fingers in hopes that the pieces of basil leaf would settle above the dirt. When we got to the last bit, we did end up using a fan, but it required a lot of subtlety because basil bits fly just as far as dust does if you're not careful.

Anyway, I sneezed and coughed a lot--I really need to remember to wear one of those dust filter masks, and then save some for next time I'm sanding down a closet door. And I smelled ridiculously like basil by the time I got home.

While I was up there, I took advantage of the great view out the barn loft's west door. That's where you can see the farm's four-legged critters. There's a whole herd of sheep and lamb, as well as two alpaca. The alpaca are Bruno (the brown one) and Tiger (the blond one). Whenever they look up at me, which is whenever they notice I'm looking at them, they have this fantastic sardonic look on their faces, like they're idly wondering when I'll stop staring at them and go do something useful with myself. (It's gotta be the haircut gives that impression.) That expression remains fixed on their faces even when they're doing something silly, which raises the silliness index to absolute ridiculousness.

So here is a picture of Bruno doing something silly just as sardonically as possible. He likes to lie down in the water trough, which requires complex maneuvering and also patience. First he kneels with his forelegs, then he pauses to make sure the rest of him is going to sit, and then he finally lets his rear end settle. Then the floating electric water heater (that red disk on an extension cord) taps him on the butt, startling him into leaping to his feet once more. He stands there for a little while, dripping--and an alpaca drips a lot of water, since his very soft coat is also very absorbant; it sounded like someone running a faucet. While he's standing there, the following thought seems to cross his mind: "Why am I standing here when I could be lying down in the water? How foolish! I shall rectify this situation forthwith."

At which point the cycle starts over again. I watched it cycle at least three times through before I thought to get out my camera.

If you have been having a crappy Monday, I hope that this picture of Bruno trying to have a bath brings you joy.