Josephine's Goat; Later On, Our Goat Dandee.

Josephine’s Goat; Later On, Our Goat Dandee.

On the Springville Farm, after chores were done, and we children were at school, my parents worked a few days a week at the local Auction House. My Mom Josephine loved the young goat that was on sale. She decided to buy it. We were glad to see the goat when we got back from school. I don’t remember the goat’s name, but she followed us around, which was quite enjoyable for us.

The goat was white, cute, adorable, frisky, and sometimes naughty, as in ‘being a pest’. She was quite young.

Mom and Dad would be doing the chores in the barn, and we three children would also be in the barn helping. The goat would also come into the barn, and suddenly leap around, having such fun. She was so nice to have around, we thought.

The cow feed was stored in a large chest near the middle of the row of stanchions, in front of the cows, to make it easier to dip into the chest and put the daily or twice-daily ration on the floor in front of each cow while they were standing in their stanchions.

The cute, adorable goat would nibble the food in front of the cow’s mouth and “share” breakfast. She also would reach into the cow feed in the bin if it was high enough for her to reach for a bite, and probably would jump into the chest to get a bigger bite.

If she jumped into the chest for some nibbles, sometimes she would leave those little black pellets from her last meal, and my Dad Joe would scold her to “get out of there!” and she’d quickly jump out of the bin, and race to hide behind Mom’s skirts. This was always fun to see, because she knew that Mom would ‘save her life’, so to speak.

Well, later on, when my husband and I had children, we bought a goat named Dandee, and tied her up to eat the grass and bushes that she liked. She was not a little goat, but a grown one. I would keep watch over her from time to time, and go back into the house to do my household chores, take care of the baby or toddler, and peek out through the window to see how Dandee was doing.

One day, I looked out, and she seemed to be tangled up in the fence separating our yard from the neighbor’s field. I went out to untangle her, and saw that she was really tangled up. So badly tangled was she, the rope around her neck was very tight. Her tongue was hanging out and the tongue was a deep color and not her usual pink tongue. She was trying to bleat for help, but couldn't quite do it. 

I quickly got her untangled, and thank my lucky stars, she was all right. Whew, that was such a scare! I don’t know why she just couldn’t stay on our side of the fence and eat all the grass, weeds, and little bushes that we had!   

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