Horse Pets
Check out Farmgirl’s sheep and their long-eared protector Donkey Doodle Dandy.
Seeing Farmgirl’s herd makes me think that adding some sheep or even better yet, a goat, to our herd would be nice. In fact, I just plain ‘ol want a goat. Each autumn at the New Mexico State Fair, I spend hours in the goat barn, until my exasperated family members, who simply don't appreciate the charm of goats, desert me for the lure of cotton candy and barbecue.
With five horses, we’ve probably got enough mouths to feed, and my husband Dennis says, with an evil glint in his eye, that I'd have to sell a couple of horses first before he'd even entertain the goat idea. Occasionally, he feels obliged to tell me just how unhappy he'll be if I straggle home one of these days with goat in tow. Possibly he's done the math and realizes just how many goats I could haul in the big Sundowner.
Whenever he begins the anti-goat talk, I whine, "My little goat Pearl didn’t eat much …"
We bought the kid for $15.00 from an Amish lady to keep my quarter horse, Buck, company. I was in the seventh grade, and we didn’t have a trailer or a pickup truck. So we hauled Pearl home to our Ohio farmette in the front seat of my mother’s four-door Chevy Impala, where she lay curled on my lap, gazing up at me with her beautiful glassy green goat eyes.
We stabled Pearl right next to the sorrel quarter horse. They grazed side-by-side every day in the pasture and wintered together in our spacious barn. If Pearl hadn’t been worth her weight in gold as a companion for my high-strung quarter horse, and if I hadn’t loved the crazy bovid as much as I did, my dad would have certainly sent her off to be made into chevon, a wine bottle, or kid gloves.
Activities Pearl enjoyed—
Munching on the beautiful long tail of my quarter horse.
Tap dancing on the roof of my dad’s 1956 canary-yellow Ford mustang.
Devouring my mother’s tomato garden.
Playing chicken with our German Shepherd dog.
Giving the veterinarian grief, which necessitated our sitting on top of an indignant and bleating Pearl for all of her goat vaccinations.
Teasing the barn cat, who liked to nap in the goat’s keyhole feeder and who kept Pearl’s nose perpetually scratched.
Playing bull and matador with me and my little sister, where we matadors almost always got the butt end of the game.
Spying on us through the dining room windows of the house. This was particularly impressive to my dad’s Asian clients who had been invited over for a formal dinner, replete with my mother’s fine crystal, china, linen, and to everyone's surprise, goat wattles.
I miss Pearl.
Flickr photo sources: kt.db; Sakanachan; Sakanachan
