How I Bought a Llama by Scratching My Nose
At the Enid sale barn, one itch on my nose and one sharp-eyed auctioneer left me the proud owner of a llama named Dolores.
Most men at a livestock auction learn early to keep their hands down. I learned it late. The sale barn at Enid runs fast, the auctioneer sings like a man selling his own kids, and the whole room is a poker table where a wrong twitch costs real money. I was there for six bred heifers and nothing else. I had a number, I had a limit, and I had a stubborn itch on the end of my nose that had been building since the second lot.
Right around lot forty, the ring man brought in a llama. I did not know why a llama was at a cattle sale and I still do not. She was tall and gray and had the look of a retired schoolteacher. The auctioneer rattled off a starting price, and I reached up and scratched my nose, as casually as a man can. The auctioneer pointed straight at me and shouted sold. Just like that, in about one second and a half.
I said I had not bid. The ring man said I had. I said I had an itch. He said everyone has an itch, and the llama is yours. I looked at the llama, and the llama looked at me, and there was a long, quiet moment between us in which I understood we were both victims of a system. So I paid the ticket, which was less than a heifer, and I loaded her in the trailer, where she rode all the way home sitting down like a person.
We named her Dolores. She turned out to be the best guard animal I ever had. She hated coyotes, hated stray dogs, and hated the man who reads the electric meter, who has not come into my yard since. The six heifers I actually wanted I got the next week, from a farmer in Perry, at a slightly higher price. I read on eXtension that llamas are used on ranches all over, which made me feel less foolish, though not much. Now I sit on my hands at every sale. My wife says I should sit on my nose. The rodeo stories crowd on farm.FM tells me an itch at an auction is practically a tradition.
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