The third and most likely the funniest of our pets, was Pilgrim. Our uncle came to our house on Thanksgiving Day, bringing two tiny newborn goats with him. He asked our family if we wanted one, since he was bringing the other to his family, and we accepted. She was an adorable kid, beautifully white with a black stripe down her back and face. Since we got her on Thanksgiving, we named her Pilgrim.

We got her when Stormy was still alive, but Sandy wasn’t. Stormy mostly ignored her, and seemed like she didn’t care too much about her existence. But there are always exceptions.

My mom read somewhere that goats need to eat salt, but we couldn’t just feed Pilgrim plain salt. So instead of throwing away our banana peels, we sprinkled them with salt, and fed it to our goat! Stormy was disgusted and confused. She would walk up to see what Pilgrim was eating, sniff at it, and then walk away. Pilgrim loved her banana peel treat, but Stormy just couldn’t understand why. Stormy knew Pilgrim liked it, so she thought it had to be good. But every time she smelled the peels she would change her mind. One day however, Stormy decided that it must be good if Pilgrim was eating banana peels. So she tried it. From then on, Stormy ignored Pilgrim’s food.

When Pilgrim was really small, we would bottle feed her milk. It was one of my favorite things to see her gobble it up. She would even walk around on her hind legs to reach it! All of the plants and bushes were bare of their leaves as far as she could reach up. It was so much fun to watch her bounce and skip off of walls and trees!

Sadly, she started growing small horns and began playfully butting people. I liked wrestling with her, but my little sister, who at the time was no more than 3 years old, was afraid to go outside because of it. So we gave Pilgrim away to people who owned a herd of goats, and found out a year or so later that she had had kids.

I’m sure the plants rejoiced at Pilgrim’s departure.