Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Slice of Life Challenge - Day 11 - Nibbles the Goat

  
 
In case this is your first time reading my slices, here is my focus for the challenge: my fifth graders and I are participating in the Slice of Life Challenge this month, and they're writing memoirs.  I thought I'd do the same kind of writing - memory writing - throughout the challenge.  My new writing idea/goal is to write a younger intermediate book (this changed since I realized I didn't have an early chapter reader "voice") based around a character very much like me, so remembering my childhood stories is very important for that project.  I'm going to be writing around photographs and memorabilia.
 
 
     One of the funniest animals we had on our little farm was this goat.  You can read about how we got him from this April 1979 Western Star newspaper clipping.  He looks adorable, but he was ornery!  We named him Nibbles because he ate and chewed on EVERYTHING!  He would get out of his fenced-in area, and we would find him eating from the hedge that ran between our neighbors' house and ours, and it was full of thorns.  It wouldn't bother him a bit.  He'd nibble on your hair, your fingers, your shoelaces - everything!  We entered him in the fair that July, and he won Champion Pet Goat.  We hung his blue ribbon on his stall door.  The next morning, I was sad to see the ribbon had disappeared.  I figured it had fallen off and gotten swept up in the trash or something.  I loved my fair ribbons, so I was really down about it until I spotted a wet, wadded up blue bundle of cloth in the corner of Nibbles' stall.  I started to giggle when I realized what it was.  He had jumped up on the door, snatched that ribbon off, and chewed it up!  Fortunately, he spit it back out so I could still keep it as a keepsake!  Here it is after all these years, still in my treasure box:
 
 
There's the intact ribbon on the left, and the chewed up one on the right.

 
Nibbles like to play on this cart.  He turned it into a teeter-totter. 
 

7 comments:

  1. I love this story about your pet goat. Normal pets are funny, why wouldn't a goat do funny things. I was also in 4H and two of my three girls are right now. Such a fun way to learn and work towards achievements. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I had to chuckle at this post. A friend of mine from high school had some goats. They were interesting to say the least.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is a great story, and the images really add to it. How thoughtful of Nibbles to leave you a keepsake. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. So, what they say about goats is true! I love the back story about how this came to be your pet, Holly - another great advantage to living in the country.

    ReplyDelete
  5. A Girl From Your Switch 3 ClassJanuary 5, 2016 at 6:27 PM

    I LOVED that story! It was pretty funny. It is VERY cool that you had a goat as a pet! :-D

    ReplyDelete