Sad news at the llama farm -- one of my four aged llamas is gone. Oreo Cookie has gone at age 25. Old age, I would say; she has been thin for the past year-plus and I have been trying to keep her weight up. I am waiting for full daylight to absolutely confirm her death, but I noted she was down at sundown and she hasn't moved since.
Oreo Cookie was our first female cria (baby llama) in 1998. At the time, I lived in suburbia and her arrival caused a minor sensation among the neighborhood children. When they asked me her name, I replied that she hadn't yet been named and that I needed suggestions. That afternoon, there was a charming note in the mail box: "To whom it may concern: You should call the baby Oreo" and so Oreo Cookie it was.
In 2003, Oreo Cookie moved all the way across the country along with six other llamas from Maryland, where she lived in a big back yard, to Oregon, where she and the other llamas had acres of pasture.
This photo is from 2012, when she was 14 years old.
RIP, Miss Cookie; may you find yourself in llama heaven, which I think of as a cool sunny alpine meadow of tall grass with no pumas around.