Country Gal by Vanita Blundell 03-21-06

Country Gal by Vanita Blundell 03-21-06
When our kids got out of school I thought that the need for a mini-van was over. I was sadly mistaken. Now that we have a pair of Great Danes the need has returned. You may ask why. Well, if you ever hauled a pair of Danes in the back-seat of your car you would understand. It was just like when the kids were little. Jennifer went with me to take the dogs to Hutchinson the see Doc Lindsay. Josie, the female Dane, stretches out across the back seat with leaves little room for the male, Jake. One the reasons Jennifer went along is because Jake still thinks he is a lap dog. He is now over 100 pounds and since my lap is dimishing I do not have room for him especially if I am driving. Josie rides much better but Jake wants the window up then he wants it down, he is sitting on Josie or he is sticking his head in the back window, or he tries to stretch out on the floor in the back. It was certainly an interesting ride. We were really tired when we got home. Now I understand people who have dog trailers and special ways to transport their animals. It is not just for the comfort of the people it is for the comfort of the dog as well.
This incident sort of reminded me of when Dad and I hauled our lambs to market. Mom stayed home and prayed. We had to take them to the train in Maize, Kansas. It was extremely exciting as we never went to the Wichita area often. And we got to eat in a restaurant; if memory serves we ate in Attica. We did not eat out often and hardly ever just Dad and me. The down side was that we were in the pick-up, which is a wonder that we made it, which was one of the many reasons Mom was praying. The sheep were loaded in the stock racks in the bed of the pick up, this was before we had trailers. Dad would put one layer of lambs on the floor of the stock racks then he would put a floor of boards on top of them then another layer of lambs, I think we ended up with three layers of lambs. We were quite a sight to see. People would pass us and honk or pull us over as we had a lamb with his leg hanging out or it appeared that we were about to lose our load, which would not have been impossible. We terrorized most of the towns that we went through. It seemed like it took us four hours to get to Maize. We had to leave early in the morning as we had to meet the train on time and we certainly did not want to miss the train. We made it thanks to Moms prayers and it was a great father and daughter time. I think now days they call it quality time. It seems that we had a lot of that. I have a few more stock rack stories but that is another column or two.