Throwback Thursday – Jan 5, 2023 Edition: OHIO, 1982-1983

After graduating from college (1980) and living in Toledo for a while, my former college roommate bought a little house on some acreage outside of Swanton, OH (actually quite a distance from what was then a small town) – on 4 between A & B, actually. And she asked me if I wanted to come and live there too, help pay the bills and all that. Since it was closer to my job in Whitehouse (I was the Activity Director at Whitehouse Country Manor) and because I’d never lived in the country I thought it would be fun. It wasn’t long before I’d started accumulating critters!

First came Nubbins, he was a week old when my roommate got him for me for a birthday gift, and I’d pick him up from the farm down the road after work to spend an hour or so with me every day until he was weaned. The next spring our neighbors across the road, whom I’d befriended, had a pair of twins born on April 1st. I went out to the barn to check on mom and there were the babies! I loved them…and then was crushed when they told me that the male was going to market as food, I’d become so attached in the meantime! Thankfully he took pity on me and sold Toggle to me for $20.

(I don’t know my goat breeds but Nubbins was the black and white one, and Toggle the brown one. My roommate also got a little goat, whose name escapes me now.)

At some point during this time my roommate made the acquaintance of a nearby farmer who pasture bred grade horses and sold them for working animals. She bought that bay that you see in some of the pictures for $100, and I later bought a dun mare for the same price. I don’t recall what I named her, but we never really clicked. She was ok, but not affectionate like the goats, and not easy to train – however it was my first horse experience so I can’t totally blame her! (You can see her in some of the photos.)

A few months after that we’d gone to a horse show and saw donkeys. I was smitten! And within a couple of weeks a horse trailer was delivering a newly-weaned baby to the barn! I named him Captain DonKirk and he was everything that my little mare wasn’t. Bright and inquisitive, affectionate, intelligent and responsive…an amazing creature! He was a large standard donkey and got a LOT bigger than what he is in these photos.

Long story short, at some point I moved on, and boarded my donkey and goats; my roommate kept my mare. And over the next dozen years or so I moved many times, most of the time having to find new lodging for my barn babies as well…but all of that is beyond the scope of today’s post. I hope you enjoy the photos, some are very similar but they’re the only ones I have left of those happy days, so I’m including them all anyway!

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