Our Weekend Guest

Early last week L called us from Middleofnowhere, GA asking if we would baby sit for them while they drove to West Palm for a wedding.


Before fully understanding what we were in for, Dub said we would be glad to. THAT was when L explained that they would be dropping Peanut off Thursday evening.


Peanut is a pygmy goat and is just five weeks old. He was born prematurely and his mother would have nothing to do with him. L and her daughter have raised him on powdered goat milk mixed with fresh goat milk they get from a friend who raises milk goats.

This was one of the funniest weekends I have ever had in my life! Dixie, our female rat terrier took a sniff and knew she wanted nothing to do with this creature. But Rascal decided that this would be the perfect playmate! And he was so right. He and that goat fought to get out the door and into the front yard first; and the race was on!


First Rascal would chase Peanut, then Peanut would take a quick turn around one of my rose bushes and ram into Rascal's rear end! Rascal would then yelp like a little girl and run like crazy with that tiny goat hot on his trail .. .. .. .. .. until the goat would fall and roll over about six times, get up and shake it off - giving Rascal time to turn around and come after Peanut again!


This would go on for at least 20 minutes and that poor little Peanut would come jump into my lap and just fall over - exhausted! Five minutes later he'd start screaming for his bottle!


After his bottle, Peanut would run back into the house and head straight into the living room and vault himself onto the couch. He'd stand there softly crying until I would sit down with lots of baby blankets for him to curl up on in my lap and he would sleep for hours.


This little guy weighs almost 5 pounds now. He gets 1 cup of milk in his bottle every 4 or 5 hours. Do you know how much pee a tiny little goat can make out of 1 cup of milk? I didn't actually measure it - but I would estimate it to be right around 2 GALLONS at least!


That little bottle of milk is almost his complete intake. He does graze a little when he's outside. Just a couple of blades of grass, a tiny flower, a leaf off my crepe myrtle - guess how much poop comes out after that tiny little bit of food???? Oh - maybe half a shovel full! I just kept reminding myself that it was great fertilizer! Even when I kept stepping in it. (Yes, I live in Florida. Yes, I am bare footed most of the time.)



Everything went really well until Saturday afternoon. Dub took the dogs with him somewhere in the Jeep and Peanut and I had just come inside from a romp in the front yard. We were just getting comfortable on the couch when the phone rang.



So, I'm yacking away on the phone and petting Peanut as he sleeps so peacefully in my lap. I heard Dub drive back into the carport - and who could miss them coming into the house? Those two dogs sound like a herd of elephants on the rampage when they come in!

Well, I guess little Peanut didn't hear them. When Rascal jumped onto the couch, it scared Peanut so bad he - um - er - hm - lost control of various body functions! I got off the phone as Peanut went running through the living room (still leaking everywhere) trying to get into his crate!



I am covered in at least two liquids (or semi-liquids) - neither of which can be adequately be described here. There is absolutely no possible way that the fluids that saturated SIX flannel baby blankets AND my t-shirt AND my jeans shorts could have all come from that teeny, tiny, little, bitty, cute, soft, snuggly, itsy, bitsy, pygmy goat!

Dub sure seemed to think it was really funny! Somehow, the humor was lost on me.


L and family came and picked Peanut up Sunday. We have almost recovered from our baby sitting. I think that the next time they ask us to baby sit we will have to remember to ask them precisely which critter it is we are baby sitting - before we commit to anything!