Wagon Tramping

Last Thursday, the boys came running into the house after school to tell me that they saw a guy on the road who was driving a tractor pulling two wagons, behind which were several donkeys walking along.

Say what?

Later in the evening, the boys went up to the post office and came back to announce that the whole rig was parked right behind the post office and the donkeys were picketed around to graze.

A. went up there to see if the guy needed any water for his animals. And this is how we learned about wagon tramps.

There are apparently still people who travel the country in wagons. This guy had two wagons, both of them custom-built. One he lived in, and the other was for his livestock. In addition to half a dozen donkeys, he had pigeons, chickens, and a few goats. He was from Missouri and was on his way to somewhere around Taos, to meet with another wagon tramp who was camping there.

A. has been promising the boys for a couple of years now that if he ever had the opportunity, he would get some pigeons. He asked the guy if he would sell any of his pigeons, but he said he had lost a few in a storm and didn't want to sell any right now.

The next morning, I was on my way to the village and stopped at the post office to check the mail. The wagon guy was still there, and he came over to the car to ask me if it was my boys who had wanted the pigeons. When I said yes, he told me that he had found out there was a very large flock of pigeons wherever he was going, so he wanted to give the boys some pigeons.

Home I went again to get all the family and a bird cage*, and then we went back to the wagons.

A couple of the grazing donkeys.

The rig.

A. and the boys were very interested in how the wagons were built. He had a catalog with all the different axles to build wagons on.

He gave us four pigeons.

He also gave me a bunch of chicken eggs, because he said he had too many. He wouldn't take any money for any of this, which I anticipated, so I gave him a loaf of bread I had baked the day before.

He moves pretty slowly, because he can only go as fast as the donkeys can walk. I would imagine it will take him maybe another two weeks to get to Taos, but I'm glad he happened to stop here. 

There are so many different lives out there I never even knew existed. This is certainly one of them.

* The children found the bird cage in the shed of the abandoned house we own and brought it home awhile ago, even though we had no birds except chickens. I had banished it to the barn, and they were very gratified that it was being put to use.