With Love and Passion: Maximus vs...Llama?

Picture yourself mowing the lawn in the middle of your suburban neighborhood one normal afternoon. Suddenly you hear this crazy noise in your direction. At first you think it is some really strange dog trying to bark and failing miserably...no, no that's not quite right...what IS that sound? It is getting progressively louder, so you stop the engine and turn around to find a huge sheep starting at you from the other side of the fence going "BAAAAA" as loud as it can possibly yawp... and that's how it started.

So my parents' next door neighbors have a llama. A llama. Not to mention many many goats (including one very scary goat), sheep, chickens, and guinea fowl... oh, and a dog. It seems every time I look over in their yard, somehow there are more animals than the time before.

I don't know HOW they bribe the city code enforcement officer, but you know you are over the limit when you have to seriously consider charging admission to your backyard. They have such a large chicken coop that they sell eggs on a regular basis...naturally. They have gotten pretty famous, and there is a constant stream of families clearly not from our neighborhood that come to feed, pet, and stare at the number of zoo animals that seem to be growing at an alarming speed. Personally, I'm hoping for ostriches next.

My absolute favorite is when someone comes to our house and tells us all about our neighbors' pets with absolute certainty that we nor anyone else has noticed them before. I mean really, when you drive down your street everyday to find a huge goat and a few sheep casually grazing on some tasty shrub in the front yard...

Since my parents live in a neighborhood of missionaries who have lived in just about every country, this is somewhat but not extremely out of the ordinary; with the exception of the very VERY short time that the neighbors tried having multiple roosters (which caused serious problems for obvious reasons), there haven't been many complaints.

Now that you have a little background, you can imagine how Maximus is tormented by the animals he cannot play with only feet away. In his defense, I'm quite sure the prospect of chasing chickens to his heart's content is almost unbearable. He would get so excited at times I really did fear he would drive himself mad...or attempt to clear the fence and impale himself on the metal wire. Not being keen on either of those outcomes, we decided to start taking him to visit...on a leash. It is without a doubt his favorite part of the day, and has been quite intriguing to say the least.

Last year for our youth group Christmas service, I took my youth to the dumpster behind a hotel to help them imagine what a modern-day stable might be like. This year I know where I'm going.

Maximus wanting to "play" with the Chickens very badly