Pippin liked the move. He liked sitting in my lap and riding in the car...
Gee, I don’t think I’ve gone this long without posting ever! But I’ve got a really good excuse; I haven’t had a computer. You see, we just moved from right near Houston in Texas, up to Nebraska, only a short drive from the South Dakota border. Yeah, it was a long move. Traveling with us were nine goats, all due to kid in less than a month, and one big horse. So, as you can guess I’ve been very busy, and even though we’ve been here about a month, our internet service was finally installed yesterday. Oh, and if any of y’all from IG Post are reading this, that’s why I haven’t fulfilled my promise to let y’all know about the Iggy sweater pattern. Since it’s been so long since I posted at IG Post as well, I’ve lost my active status. *sigh* So, I’ll fix all that as soon as I am able. Whew.
Anyway, Pippin was pretty good, actually I can’t think of anything he did wrong, and he always likes riding in the car, thank heavens. And yes, all our goats and the horse rode safely and there were no aborted kids. Now all the goats have kidded, except one, and we think she didn’t get bred anyway, since she’s kind-of old. All are healthy, even the preemie triplets we had. Now, they’re growing and thriving, and they’re such sweet babies!
Seeing new sights...
We unloaded some of our stuff into a storage building right here on the property, to keep it out of the way until we needed it. When my Mom was ready for some of it, my brother and I would take a Mule to get it. We usually took turns driving it. Sometimes, there would be room in the back for the non-driving individual to sit down on the way back, otherwise we just stood up. But when we thought there’d be room, I took Pippin with me. Pippin decided he really liked riding in the trunk of the Mule. At first, I was rather afraid he would dislike the bumping and the sliding around on the metal floor, so I held him when I rode in the back. But no, he liked it, so I took him with me even when I went by myself and there was nobody to hold him. I could even drive full speed and he wouldn’t mind! So when I got down to the metal building, I would climb out and say to him, “Stay there Pip,” and walk into the shop, as it is better known. When I came out, arms full, Pippin would still be there, looking around with pricked ears, or sniffing the air. He moved out of my way when I set the heavy stuff down and waited while I went back to get more. He’s such a great companion! I couldn’t help but laugh at him skidding around in the back as I went over the bumpy ground, or when he bounced off the floor when we hit a rather hard lump. I just knew he’d crack his little leg on the metal frame and knock all the enthusiasm out of him, even when I was really careful like I was at first, but no, he never did. It really makes me laugh when he shows so much toughness (comparatively), because he likes to pretend to be so vulnerable and innocent. Well, sometimes, that is. And, it makes me laugh how much hardiness he can display when there’s something he really wants. For instance, there was the dewberry incident…
Oh yeah, and getting the seat all to himself in the sun.
In our old house, before we got goats, we had a lot of brush. For the most part, the brush was in the way and scratchy and just begging to be got rid of. Notice, I said, “for the most part”. That’s because in some places, the brush was dewberry vines. Sweet, wild, fecund, dewberry vines. So my siblings and I, accompanied by the Pip-ster, would go out there and pick dewberries. We, of course, ate quite a few of the dewberries while we picked, and Pippin sniffed around and sunned himself on the soft sandy ground. However, all of Pippin’s by-himself activities ceased when somebody, I can’t remember who, either me or my youngest sister, gave him a dewberry. “Ooooh! yummy!” cried Pippin, and then he was at our feet, hoping for more. We gave him a few, but not enough for his liking. I don’t know how he figured out where we got the dewberries. Maybe somebody showed him, but I’m pretty sure he watched us reach gingerly into the thorns and pluck the juicy berries and put them into the buckets. The next thing I knew, Pippin was wading in the thorns, and eating the dewberries right off the vine! He would gingerly poke his nose past the thorns and carefully pull the berries off and eat them! We were all laughing at him, and then we started showing him berries that were rather old, or had been partly eaten by bugs, in general ones we wouldn’t eat ourselves, so he could eat them. But he found plenty of good ones himself! So, for the rest of the afternoon, all five of us picked dewberries together. Later, at dinner, we told our parents the story, Pippin fast asleep on his rug, worn out. But when I picked him up after dinner, I made a discovery; Pippin’s pink, nearly hairless chest (I call him “macho man” for it) was covered in criss-crossing scratches from the vines! And the dog who screams at the sound of a hand clap when he has a guilty conscience, the dog who claims that a lightly trodden on paw is the end of the world, the dog who must be comforted after his “wounds” have been taken (says he), hadn’t made a sound!! What “sacrifice“! rofl! It’s amazing what he’s willing to do for food! lol!
Pippin in the clean hay just before loading the animals for the road.
For these reasons, I call Pippin my Posh-Dog-Gone-Country, and it is hilarious to watch this “posh dog” do things like a “country dog” and see the effects. So, now we’ll just do it all in Nebraska, and we call ourselves “transplanted Texans”, or the “Texas embassy”. =D hee hee! See y’all later!
One of my John Hancock's on IG Post.
