Ashland City Adventure

On November 20, two of Molly's pups moved to Ashland City: Pistachio and Jethro. They were a purchased as a birthday present for a nice woman named Amanda. Her dad said that she'd been talking of getting goats and that she needed guardians first. When he was at the Ashland City Farmers Co-op , the manager, Benny (the man from whom I'd purchased Leslie & Pamela, the Nubian goat gals) told him that I had Junior Livestock Guardians for sale, so he called P&CW Farm.

That day I was rushing, rushing, trying to get errands done in a timely manner. After loading the pups into a crate in the back of my brand new, dirt-cheap, knock-about farm truck, I headed out to the City Clerk to get tags for it. (The regular truck is unavailable to me too often, so I'd shopped the prior day and found a tattered truck cheap enough that if it broke down there'd be little lost.) Tags attached, I stopped for grain then pushed the poor little old truck to the limit trying to get her to Ashland City to meet the buyer at a specified time.

Now, the 1985 pickup's speedometer only goes to 85, so I should have known to not push the old gal, but the speed limit here is 70 on much of the highway and I was racing against the clock, so we flew. My first hint that we were in trouble came when I took a wrong turn and pulled off at an exit. At the stop sign at the base of the exit ramp, the truck died. She started up again well enough, but I'd been warned. Did I heed the warning? Not a chance; I had puppies to deliver! (With the growing dogs eating a full 150 pounds of kibble each week, these pups needed to be placed sooner rather than later.)

Pulling off in Ashland City the truck stalled again. In the few miles we had to travel to Amanda's farmhouse, the little truck went from stalling every time I touched the brakes, to stalling every time I slowed down. That meant every bend in the road and every turn. Good thing she always started right up again.

Jethro and Pistachio were glad to get out of the dog crate and investigate their new home. I looked around and approved of the surroundings, then left them off. We didn't get far, just down the street, before it became apparrent that this little truck wasn't going to even limp to the closest garage, so we coasted down a winding road on a hill and pulled off at the first opportunity.

It was there, while waiting for AAA that I realized I hadn't even stopped to snap a going-away photo of the pups! So I took a picture of the truck again, to mark the adventure.

(And yes, even with repair bills, I still have a little truck that I can use anytime for farm chores--for cheap. That's good because more would not have fit into the budget!)