Tuesday, June 19, 2007

The Llamas, the Goat, and the Mockingbird

I recently discovered a mockingbird's nest in the "gooseneck" part of our stock trailer. If you look closely, you can see the baby birds in the nest.

Here you can get a better idea of where the nest is:

Anyway, this reminded me of something that happened a couple of years ago when a mockingbird built its nest in the same exact spot. It was the time of year when we go to a sheep sale that's held at a livestock auction place quite a few miles from here. (There aren't a lot of sheep in this area.) Just before the sale, we discovered the mockingbird's nest in the stock trailer. Now that put us in kind of a pickle. We needed to go to the sale, but didn't want to bother the baby birds, so we decided to borrow my husband's dad's pickup and trailer to take to the sale.

Now, you see, this was before we had any goats. We'd never really intended to own any goats. But while we were there, I went to get something to eat, and when I got back, (I don't know what came over my husband while I was gone), but anyway, when I got back, he had bought a nanny goat. It took him awhile to convince me that he was serious. I guess he knew that I'd always thought little goats were cute, and there was one, and ta da! we owned a goat. And an expectant goat at that!

Some of our neighbors were there that night, too, and bought two llamas. I guess they weren't expecting to buy them, either, because they had come without a trailer to haul them home in. They asked if we could bring them home, and we said we could. Soon we were on the way home. As we were driving along, in the dark by the way, the lights on the pickup went out! We got stopped, got them on again, and started on. This happened at least two or three times before we got home! But we finally made it and decided it would be a long time before we tried that again! We'd had the lights go out in a borrowed pickup pulling a borrowed trailer hauling two llamas and a goat all because of where a mockingbird had made its nest! Makes you wonder how many times that's ever happened!

2 comments:

Knitted Gems said...

How very kind of you to work around the nest! In my eagerness to trim a Fire Thorn bush, not only did I get scratched to high hithers, but I think I scared a Mama bird off. After pruning half of the bush, I found an empty nest (thankfully, it was empty).

Oh, and last year, I had a need to borrow your goat. I understand they are excellent at eating poison ivy. As I live in the suburbs and goats are strictly forbidden, I had to resort to chemicals and the age-old "starvation" method.

And last but not least, I LOVE your yarn. But, I promised myself that I would not buy anymore yarn this year (I made an exception for the recent yard sale), but I just might have to break that promise soon. I am in need of a border yarn for my now halfway completed afghan. Plus, I have very little self-restraint. =)

Brenda said...

I'd say that's right about the goats and poison ivy. They'll eat just about any kind of brush they can find. I think they like it better than grass! And thanks so much for your kind comments. :)

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