Our Other Companions (part one)

When Thomas said we were going to start traveling, we were just going to take Boogie. Then as Weenie got bigger, I decided to take her too. We found homes for the other puppies, and we needed to find homes for Peanut, Blanca, and Daisy. But we also had a cockatiel and a herd of goats. I told Thomas that I was not getting rid of my goats until we were leaving the driveway!

We weren't sure what to do with Pete, our cockatiel. I was finding out that people travel with a lot of different animals, but we didn't know if we should take him. They live to be very old, and it is suggested that you put them in your will. Two months later, we found him dead in his cage! We had had him over 5 years, and there was nothing wrong with him.

Then Blanca went in heat, but my son said "We're not doing this again!" so he ran Peanut back to his ex-wife's. Too late! The end of August, she had her second litter of pups. She had 4: one little boy and 3 beautiful girls. I got requests early. A couple were for out of state, so I was hanging on to them until we left. I thought we were leaving soon. They became Pepper (or Lil Boy), Pumpkin, Freckles, and Bingo.

Clinton called me at work one day, and told me that he found Blanca paralyzed. He put her and the pups in the bathtub so they would stay all together. The puppies were 4 weeks old. We had the van by then, so since I was so busy with work, I fixed a bed for her and put her in the van with the puppies in their plastic tub. I had to feed the puppies myself, because she wasn't able to nurse. It took a lot of work. Two days later, Blanca is up and back to normal, and looking at me like, "Hey, you got them, I'm done!" Do you think maybe she was faking it? Nah, I know she wasn't.

Remember, during the summer, besides working, I was also taking Thomas to OKC for physical therapy 3 times a week. OKC was over 70 miles from our house. Then we would travel down 35 to get any stores I had south of Norman. We were very busy. And it was getting harder for Thomas to help me with the goats. I wanted to keep them; they were my babies. But then I started thinking they were the reason we were still there. My not letting them go was the reason we were still there. I had 3 registered pygmies, and the offspring from them and 2 other females I had. I was up to twelve. I paid 700. for my registered pygmies and had traded my boer goats for their transportation. I didn't want to lose them if we weren't leaving. And I didn't want to sell the herd for less than a thousand. I could have gotten that if I had advertised on the internet, but I didn't have the time or the computer. People around here wouldn't give more than 50 a head. And they were all pregnant. I sold them for less than half of that, and gave away a lot of goat "stuff" with them. Then I found out one died in childbirth, and the rest were sold. I was very upset, but thought that was what I needed to do to leave.