The Big Queasy

She owns the back of the car.

The Louisiana welcome center had some great information for us and the staff was quite friendly and helpful. Dan lived in New Orleans for a while and was the tour guide, so instead of our usual state park type camping with natural scenes to enjoy, we chose Jude Travel Park since it was a five-minute drive from downtown. Upon arrival I was a bit taken aback at the place. 

It was basically a fenced gravel parking lot with a bathhouse, a laundry, and a small pool. Initially after seeing it we drove up and down the road looking at other rv parks, but this was the best of them. I then realized that of course the campground was a parking lot; it’s in the middle of a city. Thirty bucks a night wasn’t too steep of a price, and the place was actually very accommodating and pleasant. 

Rosie kept crawling under the camper and getting stuck. Apparently that's where the "good grass" is.

We had a little tree and a picnic table, some grass for Rosie to munch on, wi-fi included, access to a laundry, real showers and bathrooms, and the lady who owned the park is an intense animal lover as well. There were some large and expensive RV’s there and the gate had a passcode, so we felt perfectly safe even though that may not have been the best part of town. Then again there doesn’t seem to be a particularly good part of town in New Orleans anymore besides the multi-million dollar housing communities. The facilities were very clean, the pool was a perfect solution for the midday heat, and our animals were able to have air conditioning.

I believe the air conditioner in the camper was installed sometime in the eighties, and it was put under the table for some reason. If the table is in the down position it cools the three feet on the top of the table quite wonderfully, but the canvas nature of the camper will not hold any air and as such the majority of the camper is over 100 degrees while the area right by the A/C is a cool 60 degrees or so. Our answer to this was to line up all of the animal cages on the table (one large wire crate for Rosie, one medium plastic crate for Oscar and Bartleby, one small wire crate for Frankenstein, and one X-large tent-like collapsible crate for Piper and Juno since they’re the only ones that won’t rip it up) and then cover the crates with cushions and blankets to funnel all the cold air in to the animals. The only problem with this setup is that if for whatever reason our air conditioner failed, the animals would overheat much more quickly. Luckily the wonderful lady who owned Jude Travel Park agreed to keep an ear out for our air conditioner and give us a call if it began to behave strangely. We had no problems, but still hung around most of the day scrunched between the cages and the wall to steal some air for ourselves.

Night fell, and Dan and I left the animals to form an escape plan amongst themselves while we were otherwise occupied. Of course I wanted to experience Bourbon Street and the French Quarter, and Dan willingly obliged. I’m not much of a drinker and went only to observe the baser facets of the human experience. The number one remark that I have about New Orleans is that it reeks. It smells of any manner of bodily fluids and expulsions mixed with rotting garbage, mold-infested buildings, and fermenting discarded rancid booze. Mixed with passing whiffs of overstated perfume and Jersey-boy Axe hair gel, the combination is gut-wrenching and head-spinning. The walk down Bourbon Street was quite an experience, though I can’t say I enjoyed it terribly much. I did, however, appreciate the wonderful architecture of the houses in the area. 

A few short blocks after all the madness the scene was dark and quiet, lit only with a few gas lamps to showcase the brilliant porticos and towering live oaks lining the street. Next Dan took me to one of his favorite bars called The Spotted Cat, and as we entered the finishing verse of one of my favorite songs, “Honeysuckle Rose,” was lingering over the crowd. The live jazz band was brilliant, and even though they couldn’t fulfill my request to play “Birdsong” I enjoyed them nonetheless.

Enjoying the live jazz at The Spotted Cat

To end the night we walked to the banks for the Mississippi River and regarded the lights of the city and the bridge reflecting along the waterway. The Big Muddy has always been an inspiration to me since devouring the Little House on the Prairie books in second grade and in later years reading the escapades of Bloody Jack and her raft trip down the big river. I hear there is still a raft race that occurs on the river and wish to one day take part. Apart from the bodies of sleeping people resting under benches and on sidewalks (as they do every twenty feet or so it seems, in New Orleans), it was a quite romantic moment sitting under the stars and moonlight watching the great calm river churn on by. There was a refreshing breeze rolling in that even swept away the smells of the city.

View across the Big Muddy

Reflecting on my opinion of NOLA

What a lovely breeze

I had intended the next night to take Rosie out to Bourbon Street and see what havoc we could cause there, but as I often do I just fell asleep instead after a day of running errands in the sweltering city, satisfying my craving for green Thai curry, and consuming a drive-thru daiquiri that NOLA is remembered for. 

The service at SukhoThai was awful, and the food was mediocre at best, but it was air conditioned!

Drive thru daiquiris; actually just a window in the wall of a bar.

Apparently in New Orleans the open container law it that you can have a to-go cup of alcohol in your car while driving so long as you have not out a straw into the hole. Go figure. Luckily Dan and I both value naps very much and aren’t terribly regretful about sleeping through experiences that might cause us to have to interact with other people. I woke up at three in the morning and wrote some blog posts, which you read last week, and napped again until it was time for us to pack up in the morning. At the campsite we met a couple in a large RV who also run a blog (I'll have to find the address later) who generously gave us a box of dog treats and a couple extra steel dogs bowls which have been very helpful.

This photo accidentally turned out quite well!

I figured that I would be remiss on the blog if I didn’t include at least one picture of Rosie on Bourbon Street, so Dan drove the camper and cats around the block a few times while I walked Rosie and the dogs. Bourbon Street during the day is nearly deserted as everyone is recovering from the previous night and preparing for the following one, so Rosie only met a few people before returning to the road.

Some people still drink during the day on Bourbon Street. Those people love goats.

He gave me a souvenir cup!

A nice bar owner took a picture for me at the corner of Bourbon and San Felipe.

Piper, Juno, and Rosie take a moment in the shade under the historic Bourbon St sign.

Rosie loves to meet other kids like herself!

On our way to get back on I-10W, I took a few pictures of Loyola college, which is quite impressive in its own rite, and the trolley cars. I hate that I didn't stop to take a ride on one, as a admire the whole trolley system. 

Loyola College

Trolleys taking a break

Reflection on the road out of town, right before noticing the heat gauge!

We had to stop for twenty minutes on our way out of the city since one of the engine fans in the Element doesn’t seem to come on when it’s supposed to. Dan asked me why the air conditioning wasn’t cooling, and I had the forethought to check the engine temperature gauge. It was hot, hot, hot! Driving around towing a camper in hundred degree heat towing a thousand pounds is a recipe for overheating, and we’ve learned to keep a weather eye on the gauge. No harm was done other than some panting and grumpy animals, and soon again we were on our way to Texas!

Rosie's grumpy face

As much of the Bayou backwater as I got to see

This is how we roll on the way to play with llamas in Texas!

Lawd, I Was Born A Ramblin' Man!

Finally escaping North Carolina!

Our stinky little menagerie left Highlands with a soaking camper and a car full of trash, molding laundry, and a discarded roll of goat-stained carpet. The original linoleum lends itself much easier to clean, especially after the sick goat incident, so the carpet found a new home in the local grocery store dumpster.

There are a number of songs and books that have always awakened in my the urge to travel, and in times when I had to work and save money instead of heading out on the highway these works serve to keep me inspired and focused on my goals. One of my favorite songs to jam out to on the road is Ramblin’ Man. I love to roll down the windows and belt it out with the wind blowing in my hair and the dogs hanging their heads out the side of the car. The song just provides a sense of freedom, and I wanted to be a part of that. The song goes “I’m on my way to New Orleans this morning, leaving out of Nashville, Tennessee,” so that’s exactly what we did. We headed west from Highlands and drove all day just to reenact a song. I’ve been to Nashville before and didn’t really care to stay in the city, but I just wanted to do that to set off our trip in the first state outside of North Carolina.

We stopped at a Walmart near Knoxville to pick up activated carbon (in case of further upset goat), a cat collar for Frankenstein, and Dan’s daily gallon of soda. As always, walking the cat and goat got us a bit of attention from the locals, and we were just in time to watch a glorious sunset over the mountains before going into the store. I snapped a few pictures, but it’s really a shame that we don’t have a better way to capture the majesty of the sky that we experience every day on the road.

Fantastic Tennessee sunset over the mountains

It may seem a bit wonky to drive four hours out of the way just to drive through a place without stopping, but hey, we can do whatever we want. That’s the beauty of living on the road. There’s nowhere to be and no time limit on getting there. I wanted to fulfill the song’s line and drive out of Nashville at sunrise, but it ended up happening at exactly midnight, which worked for me. I plugged in the iPod and cranked up the volume as Dan and I caught our second wind and felt a keen sense of exhilaration at living up to the words that had so long been a “one day” wish. We were indeed on the way to New Orleans.

That night around 3am we stayed over at a truck stop, halfway set up the camper enough to let the canvas dry, and slept with the dogs in the camper and the goat and cats in their own little car camp. The Element is the perfect vehicle for our trip, other than the fact that it is a four cylinder and tends to side with gravity on any inclines. The interior and completely plastic and rubber, the back seats can be completely removable (we left one at home) or fold up flat against the wall forming a truck bed in the back, it’s got real0time 4 wheel drive, plus we generally get 17 to 22 mpg when towing the camper fully loaded. The back windows and sunroof vent open enough to let a breeze through but not wide enough to have any escaping little ninjas, and there’s generally no problems with rain coming in the open windows either. The thing was made for animal lovers, and I can’t figure out why Honda discontinued the model. If they had made a 6-cylinder version it would have been a big hit with pet people and outdoor enthusiasts even with the decline in gas mileage. I digress, but I do love this car.

Onward to Mississippi!

Our next adventure was at a free campground on Airey Lake in the De Soto National Forest of Mississippi. It seems that the majority of free campsites are along long dirt and gravel roads in the middle of nowhere. As our convoy made its way down the three miles of dirt to the site, we couldn’t help but think that it looked like we were on a Mars expedition. It was quite barren and covered with bright red dusty dirt. 

We didn't see any Martians, though.

Then we began to pass news vans coming from the opposite direction. I was thinking that maybe we could walk Rosie around the background of wherever they were filming and get a kick out of it, but soon it became apparent that it was a much more serious newscast. About ten news vans and a number of police and other emergency vehicles were parked on either side of the road and it looked like we would be unable to pass. We stopped and asked some bystanders what was going on and if we could get through to the campground. They said that we could make our way through slowly and the place was a mile down the road, but there had just been a helicopter crash and there would be emergency vehicles cleaning up for a couple days. Definitely not the time to try to get the goat on the news. A mile down the road we did find the campsites and took a little break by the water before setting up camp.

Happy to be out of the car!

Dan: Master of Fire

The campground was situated overlooking a large lake that seemed surprisingly little-used. The three days we were there we saw maybe ten boats. It seemed as though the campground hadn’t been used in a while, as most of the trailer sites were overgrown with weeds. There was a parking area with a boat ramp, pit toilets, picnic tables, and some trash cans. We managed to work the camper into a site that had a beautiful overlook of the lake down below and the surrounding mountains. It would have been nice to spend more time outside, especially because of the oppressive humid heat, but the bugs were incessant and out to get us. There wasn’t a single other camper there in three days, and the only humans we saw were the emergency vehicles using the turn around parking lot at the end of the day. At night we could hear fox calls all around the camper, and once when Piper took off into the woods after some unknown creature in the darkness we decided that all animals are to be corralled before sundown. It was a nice spot but after three days we decided to move on and attempt to escape the heat and bugs. Packing up we came across a MASSIVE spider and a scorpion holed up in our vinyl camper cover, and a plethora of ants to boot. That place did not seem to like us very much.

Kindly leave us alone, Sir Spider.

Rosie's on the lookout for any woodland deviants

I would say that the worst part about traveling with animals and no electrical hookup is the lack of air conditioning. Luckily the dogs, Rosie, and Frankenstein can all go outside to relax in the shade and are used to living outside in the North Carolina summer heat. Oscar and Bartleby are indoor temperature-controlled cats who also reside in a plastic crate when unsupervised. It’s difficult to keep water in the area without it being spilled, and there’s little interest in hydration to begin with. 

Oscar can only keep this position for so long without causing a tsunami.

Our vehicle does a fine job at A/C while driving, but it burns gas and also has issues any time we’re at idle. A quick stop for food or wi-fi becomes dangerous when the car won’t cool, and even with the windows and doors open the animals are treacherously hot within three minutes. We have no way of making ice packs to carry around, and no method of cooling them besides wet towels, a misting waterbottle, and a couple of pathetic battery-powered fans. Another sweltering day at a free campsite in Alabama made us uncertain about our journey further south into the peak of summer. This was how we decided that we should just go ahead and pay for a site with electrical hookups in New Orleans. 

Introducing: The Cats!

This post is long past due; I'm an avid procrastinator as you've probably noticed. Anyhow, I thought this would be a good time to introduce our other three travelling companions!

Bartleby Herman Meowville

Oscar Wildecat

And a new and unexpected tag-a-long finally dubbed Frankenstein!

Bartleby and Oscar are Dan's cats. They were perfectly content chilling in the camper until last night, when Bartleby put into action his brilliant escape plan. Now they know how to get out of the camper through a poorly-designed canvas doorway cover, and we've got to come up with a way to prevent that. They're both lifelong house cats who wouldn't know how to protect themselves out in the wide world. I'll let Dan flesh out their bios if he so desires.

Frankenstein was a stray cat who lived near my house. She had been hanging around for months and was always friendly, but a couple days before we left for the trip I fell in love with her. She loves to cuddle, rides on my lap in the car, and even actively associates with the dogs. Juno has no idea how to react to a cat that she can't make uncomfortable with an hour-long staring session. Frankenstein was originally dubbed Tag-a-long, but that's just not a very call-able name. The revision was decided upon as an homage to one of my favorite television shows called Red Dwarf featuring a cat so named, and also because the first book I read while on this trip and also for the first time happens to be Frankenstein. The cat has a very low brow ridge like that of the monster from the movies, and the loving personality depicted in the earlier parts of the monster's life in the book.

They get along peacefully for the most part, although if Bartleby or Oscar get too close to Frankenstein she tends to hiss at them. I don't imagine that she's had pleasant experiences with other cats in the past. They generally ignore her, though, and we haven't had any terrible spats.

You may not see too many pictures of them since they mostly stay in the camper (although Frankenstein is occasionally allowed out when there are no dangers around), but I'm sure they'll appear frequently in our stories.

Real Mountain Camping

After almost running out of gas and finally escaping the Blue Ridge Parkway, we chose a free campsite in Highlands, NC, called Blue Valley Dispersed Campground that had great reviews online. It was three miles up a dirt road and had a scenic waterfall hike as a nearby attraction. It’s taking some time for us to get into the swing of things so that we’re not stressing to set up camp before sundown, but I think after some trial and error we’ll have it down pat soon. Dan experimentally drove our convoy through the mountains for a ways until we decided it would be best to let me take the helm until we hit flat land again. This trip is his first experience towing a trailer, and I commend him for a valiant first effort even though it made me quite nervous. A rule was established: no mid-road U-turns. Or U-turns at all with a trailer, for that matter.

Our little misfit band approached the campsite around 8pm, and we only saw one other tent camper in the area. Throughout our three days there we saw quite a few cars go up the opposite dirt road, but not many come back down. We drove up that way to discover a few campsites, but no explanation as to where those cars went. Maybe there’s a car-eating mountain beast. I had packed the camper in a more logical way the previous night which made unpacking a breeze, and by time darkness fell we managed to set up the propane stove kitchen. Dan is an accomplished cook and seems to be able to make fantastic meals from meager ingredients. We’re going to publish another section of the blog with some of his on-the-spot easy camp recipes.

First-time campfire cooking. Juno supervised.

The cats were enjoying themselves romping around the camper as we ate. Occasionally we heard a dull thud as medicine ball-esque Oscar descended from bunk to floor, and we could see Bartleby’s shadow-puppet dance through the canvas as he chased wayward mosquitoes. Tag-a-long cat (we have yet to officially name her) guarded my bed from her curious companions with an impressive show of hissing that she just couldn’t back with her six-pound scrappy frame. Luckily the other cats regard her much the same as any other inanimate human-toy strewn about the camper.

Piper, Juno, and Rosie were tied up outside since it was dark and we were being cautious of bears and other wildlife. As always, we stowed any dirty dishes and food in airtight containers inside the car, even though our canvas camper is filled with warm, fuzzy, tasty pet snacks. When it was time to bunker down the cats went in their cages and we brought the large crate in for Rosie to sleep in since she couldn’t be trusted not to cause mischief while we slept. The dogs were cuddling by my feet, and Dan was listening to his choice podcast on the opposite bunk, and then things began to get graphic. And stinky. If you’re squeamish you should probably skip the next paragraph, as it’s pretty disgusting.

I don’t know if you’re ever though about what happens when a goat vomits. Probably not, but I hope you never have to experience it. Especially in a ten-foot-long camper. Technically it’s not vomiting since goats have a rumen before the true stomach; it’s called slinging cud. Basically it is half-digested plant matter that has been chewed, regurgitated, and re-chewed. Most of the time Rosie politely burps it into her mouth to continue her process, but this time she had eaten something that didn’t agree with her. The retching was awful and painful to watch, and when it came up she shook her head, causing projectile fountain-splatters of green gobs of gross gook to cover everything within four feet of the cage. Plant shrapnel marred the canvas curtains, the wooden paneling, my suitcase, the floor, towels, blankets, and anything else within reach. And she continued this for an hour. We didn’t want to put her outside for fear of becoming a bear snack, so I covered the kennel with towels to contain some of the carnage. The smell was horrific. I knew that Rosie had probably eaten something toxic, and I was scared she was going to die. Her eyes looked intermittently frantic and alternately glazed, and she eventually laid down and wasn’t really moving much. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to sleep, but I didn’t want her to sleep because I wouldn’t be able to tell if she was conscious.

Dan asked if we could or should give her pepto, or if we had any baking soda available. I didn’t think I had packed baking soda, and wasn’t sure if pepto was safe for goats. The GPS said there was a Walmart about twelve miles down the mountain, so Dan volunteered to drive and get some baking soda while I stayed with the poor goat and the rest of the pets who, to their credit, were behaving well and staying still and quiet. Avoiding the splatter zone of plant matter, I made my way to the cage door to offer Rosie some water and pat her on the sides to hopefully settle her stomach and help her burp. Although that cud-slinging was disgusting, I figured it was safer for her to get it out of her system even if that meant more mess. An hour passed and Rosie’s plight seemed to be calming down even though I still couldn’t get her to drink any water. She seemed to appreciate my burping efforts and eventually I felt that she was ok to goto sleep if she wanted. I went back to my bed to watch and worry, and realized that Dan should have been back from the baking soda run.

The mountain roads were dark, steep, curvy, and partly unpaved, and I was concerned that in his hurry Dan may have flipped the car over the edge of the mountain. This was the second night in a row that I was left with no cell signal to wonder if I would ever see my friend again. After yet another dragging hour in a stinking camper that I could not escape for fear of bears, Dan returns with a harrowing story of his mountain plight. Our ignorant GPS took him on a wild goose chase across a mountain range to a Walmart that didn’t exist, and then to a second Walmart nearby that in fact was the same location as the original nonexistent Walmart. This being a small mountain town, nothing else within forty miles was open besides one gas station that had no baking soda, and one which at long last did. The old man at the counter was unfazed by Dan’s frantic demeanor, and failed to return the quarter in change owed from the transaction. Hurrying back up the forty miles of winding roadway and three miles of twisting gravel, Dan arrived with the baking soda that Rosie refused to take.

Relieved that he hadn’t careened off the side of a cliff and thankful for the remedy, I attempted to administer water and baking soda but Rosie absolutely refused me getting anywhere near her mouth. I ended up just putting the baking soda and water in the crate with her and trying to make it to sleep for the night. As we settled in and I mentioned to Dan that she had stopped retching about an hour previously, she started up again. This time for around fifteen minutes or so and then she seemed to have the toxin out of her system enough to calm down and sleep.

In the morning as I was attempting to pry dried goat vomit from the wooden paneling, I heard Dan utter a yell of frustration. While getting a granola bar from the Element, Dan found the box of baking soda that I had packed after all. We decided there was nothing left to do but laugh. That seems to be our answer to any of the stresses that we come across on the trip. Why do anything but be happy in spite of it all? This little bit of wisdom was difficult to remember when scrubbing cemented stinky plant matter from impossible places. Rosie has temporarily been demoted to outdoor crated goat until we have a better cleanup protocol. She acquired a new tree as tie-out buddy that isn’t surrounded by tasty toxic ferns (which after some Googling seems to have been the culprit).

Here's a picture of our pretty little stream instead of a picture of the previous paragraph.

The rest of the day was spent pretty domestically. There’s a stream near the campsite that I believe is a small offshoot of the Nantahala River. That particular river is perpetually cold, at about 50 degrees (F) all year. This made for some very refreshing bathtime, although Dan chose to heat his water on the fire. We used his leftover bathwater to do some laundry, and I took the goat-refuse-sodden towels to the river and weighed them down to the bottom with rocks to let nature’s washing machine do its job. It took a couple hours to successfully complete our small bit of laundry, but eventually we had everything wrung and hung to dry. Unfortunately we didn’t foresee that the humidity would render the clothes wet and mildewey three days later, making our efforts in vain and requiring us to carry around trashbags full of wet, stinky, moldy, heavy laundry until such time as we could find a Laundromat. I also did the dishes in the river and enjoyed watching the minnows nibble at the leftover bits of ramen floating down the stream. Someone had previously left a little stick raft by the bank, and it was quite a peaceful and picturesque way to do housework, which I generally can’t abide.

The reviews of the campsite had mentioned a short waterfall hike on up the road a ways. Rosie wasn’t invited to hike with us because we were still concerned about toxic plants (the NC mountains are filled with rhodedendron, which is highly toxic to goats), and the cats haven’t yet been leash trained so it was just Dan, Piper, Juno, and me. We didn’t see a single person or animal on the whole hike. It was maybe a mile, mile and a half up some switchbacks to the top of the mountain peak to get to Glen Falls. Although I tend to be the hiker and Dan has until now been a city-dwelling tobacco chimney, he did much better at the whole breathing thing. I was quite winded but managed to keep pace most of the time. When we got to the top Dan stopped for a Newport and I snapped this picture.

"Newport: the hiker's cigarette!"

 Glen Falls

Since no other people were around and we saw no posted leash rules the dogs were allowed to run around. They had a blast gallivanting in the water and splashing mud all over me. Even Juno, who until that day had a deep distaste for any body of water, was splashing about and chasing leaves as they spiraled down the stream. The waterfall itself wasn’t terribly impressive, but it was a waterfall nonetheless. I guess millions of gallons of water pouring over rocks for hundreds of years is always somewhat impressive, no matter how large the fall is.

The third morning we had planned to leave our peaceful little mountain habitat, and I awoke groaning to the sound of heavy rain on the canvas. It always sounds like a massive rainstorm from inside the camper even in a slight rain, but this was a downpour. Although the sound of rain is pleasant for sleeping in, it’s not pleasant for packing up. Luckily I had taken in the wet hanging laundry when rain threatened the night before, even though I knew that wouldn’t help the mildew smell any. We decided to get a move on regardless of our wet things, although it may have been a less smelly situation if we had just waited another day for everything to dry. Packing up wet items and canvas into a tightly enclosed space with already-mildewed laundry and then driving in the sun for six hours makes for a smell similar to what I might imagine Primordial Soup would be like. It seems the theme for this site boils down to one word: smelly.

As this has been an excessively long post, I’ll end it here as we depart from Highlands, NC, and head to Nashville, TN for a brief stopover. I’m a couple stops behind on updating, but since then we’ve made it all the way to New Orleans, and will be departing here tomorrow for a Llama refuge farm in Harper, TX, Be sure to check out some of the older posts, since I’ve been updating some of the pictures. See you on the flip side!

Rosie of the Day

As some of you readers know, I'm a member of an online forum called PopUp Portal. The folks there have enjoyed Rosie, Piper, and Juno's escapades, and a few of them even got to meet us at the Annual NC PopUp Portal Rally last June. I'm going to post a few stories I've written on that forum to give you all some more background while you await the two new posts I'm working on! (I'll just put this 'lil paragraph in front of the old forum posts.)

Here's your "Rosie of the Day!"

Today Rosie, Piper, Juno and I went for a two mile walk along our local greenway trail. Piper carried my wallet and keys for me. I kept the dogs on the leash, and since we were the only ones around I let Rosie go free to see if she would keep up. She loved it! She'd lag behind twenty feet or so for some nibbles, then gallop to catch up. A few times she even went in front as if to say "I'm the boss, now! Follow me!"

There are also a couple pics of miss Rosie wearing flowers in her hair. =] 

The trail's a bit stinky sometimes from culverts.

Piper likes to carry my wallet, phone, and keys.

Rosie leads the way!

"C'mon, guys, catch up!"

"Wait for meeee!!!!!!"

Rosie lives on my grandparents' farm about eight miles from my house. (I don't have a fence and will be heading on the road soon, so she stays there for now.) She stays in a 10'x20'x6' chain link dog lot in which we have put a long tin-roof house for her shelter and some left-over 50-gallon drums made into dog houses from the previous occupants. Six feet is just barely high enough to hold this little goat in. She's about knee high, but she is quite close to clearing the six foot fence. For fun, Rosie likes to sunbathe on top of her house and jump off the top of it for exercise. When she's bored she likes to headbutt those 50-gallon plastic drums. She has discovered that she can roll them around and set them up on end once she has them in the right place. We've watched her position a drum five feet from her house just so she can practice jumping from the tin roof to the barrel. Sometimes she takes a flying leap and karate-goat-kicks the barrel to knock it over.  I'm just glad she hasn't thought to put the barrel by the fence and jump over that way! I should put up a camera and have a "Rosie's Antics" Youtube channel.