Farewell Pepper and Moon Pie

 

After much thought and consideration we decided to find a new home for Pepper and his pal, Moon Pie. It was a very, very difficult decision and we are already missing them.

But we did manage to find them an excellent new home with animal lovers that have provided a wonderful home to several dogs, rabbits and horses.

 

Between the cost of feed, the time it takes me to take good care of all of our animals (hoof trims, worming, feeding, attention, grooming), and the fact that with Ranchman John now on the road full-time as Trucker John, all of the animal care, kidlet care, homeschooling and housework is solely on me and I find that I don’t have enough hours in the day, or energy, to keep up.

So we based our decision on which critters are giving back or paying their own way on our little ranch. Dogs and cats are exempt, of course. Any critters that give us eggs, wool or milk are safe. We had a total of five goats, two sheep, two llamas and one horse. Luna, the angora goat gives me mohair fleece, and the sheep give me wool. The llamas not only give me fleece, but they both guard our little flock and they are trained to pack and join me for hikes.

Mud Pie, our rescued Nigerian wether has a home here as long as we have Latte our Miniature Dairy Goat because they are best friends. And Baby Doll  has a home here as a pasture pet because I can’t imagine not having her whinny and come to the gate whenever she sees me, so unless I find her the perfect home, she’s here to stay.

Pepper was a rescue situation almost 2 years ago and he was the first choice, but after we found him a new home, we discovered that the new owners didn’t have any other goats, though they were planning on adopting one or two more goats very soon. Moon Pie is Pepper’s best buddy, so it just made sense to offer Moon Pie, too. And that way we knew that Pepper and Moon Pie would have each other to support one another through the changes of moving to a new home and environment. Pepper’s new owners were thrilled to have Moon Pie, too.

Over the weekend, we drove up to Santa Fe to drop off Pepper and Moon Pie to their new home. It was important for us to see what sort of environment they’d be living in and we were happy to see that their new owners had set up a very large pen with a covered area, next to their two horses and two boarder’s horses.

They plan to build a special goat shelter for the winter, too. They also showed me the horse arena that the boys would be allowed to exercise in and eat weeds with the horses. Most of the time Pepper and Moon Pie will be in a large yard attached to their artist studio, and since the new owners work from home, Pepper and Moon Pie will always have human companionship, too.

C. is a talented artist and we were thrilled to be given a tour of her studio and some of her artwork.

We will greatly miss Pepper and Moon Pie. They were the loudest of our goats and also the biggest eaters. But they were also goofy and sweet. Their new owners invited us to stop by anytime that we’d like to check in on the boys. And they’ve already sent us updates via e-mail with beautiful, artistic photos of Pepper and Moon Pie, so it’s reassuring to know that they are settling in to their new home as much-loved family pets.

Farewell Pepper and Moon Pie!

From the Tower of,