Time for Eggplant......ah Piper The Beginning

posted by Herzig

Perhaps I should have said that differently. Sounds like something a HC might make to eat....and eating this EGGPLANT would definitely result in fleece between the teeth and indigestion. Better I should have started the post with Time for Piper....and later the Eggplant. Yep, and that is where this began. Where did Piper come to the flock 'from'. For that go to Meet the Ovines and although 'where' isn't part of this issue it may explain how wonderful our Piper is to us.

But last fall the problem began. Piper, always quiet and reserved found an Eggplant. Actually he found a small knitted Eggplant which had been made by our HC a few years back. She had made several vegetables and fruits. There was a carrot, a banana and an orange. But frankly they all looked rather false...as in they looked exactly like a knitted fruit or vegetable. Nice but not well, quite 'from the garden' so to speak. But the Eggplant. NOW that one was special. That one looked freshly picked and EXACTLY like an Eggplant. Piper found it and decided it was for him. So he grabbed it and from that day forward you never saw Piper without his Eggplant. They were inseparable. Until...........

One day the Eggplant was gone. We had gone on a small adventure and Piper had insisted his Eggplant go along. We put Piper and the Eggplant in a basket, the one they are in at the top of the post. But when we returned to the pasture and emptied the basket from the trip, no Eggplant. Piper had been in the basket...as well as a few items the HC carries. A wallet, a camera, a phone, some keys...Piper, but no Eggplant. Chaos erupted.

We looked all through the vehicle which had taken us on the Adventure, NOTHING.

We even persuaded our HC to go back to the places we had gone on the Adventure, NOTHING.

We went to the people who worked in the place we had gone on the Adventure,

NOTHING.

We returned and explained to our Piper the Eggplant wasn't found. He was inconsolable. Hanging his head he said "the Eggplant was so special so someone must have seen it and decided they would like it to be their friend. They must have taken it home". With that Piper walked over to his sleeping spot in the pasture, laid down, and didn't move. That day or the next or the next. He didn't move about, he didn't speak to others in the flock, he didn't respond when spoken to, he didn't want any MLGV.

And that is when it started.

In hope my friend Piper goes back to being Piper,

Herzig, adopted with Piper and his friend

THE SUBJECT IS V~D~D

posted by Ellis the Ram

Yes, once upon a time our Piper was simply a normal ovine. He loved to play and 'hang about'. You could hear him baa'haaing and bleating about the pasture with his friends in the flock. But slowly we began to notice small changes in him. Finally we asked him why he seldom played in the pasture with the others. That was when we first heard him utter the word EGGPLANT. EGGPLANT we asked, "What EGGPLANT do you mean? Would you try to eat some EGGPLANT? There is some over in the garden which is over the fence by the pasture." Just by the look on his face we knew we had said something wrong. Had we asked the wrong question? APPARENTLY.......

YES

It was then we met....... THE EGGPLANT. It seems that while the flock had been playing in a box of items which our HC had knit, with fiber, Piper found an EGGPLANT. And for some reason, known only to Piper it seemed, was immediately enthralled with this item. At first it seemed of no consequence. After all creatures of all sorts have treasures, treasures which only shine for them. Esme asked our HC if Piper could keep this Eggplant, at least until he tired of it and our HC said certainly. And a matter of fact she gladly would give it to Piper since he liked it so very much. Piper was THRILLED. And from that day forward Piper and his Eggplant were inseparable. Piper went no place without his Eggplant. Then one day while out on an Adventure with our HC Esme, Piper and I sat down to rest while shopping.

AND WHEN WE RETURNED HOME FROM THE ADVENTURE, NO EGGPLANT. Piper was devastated. To the place we sat we all MUST return and find the EGGPLANT. We informed our HC and she took Esme, Piper and myself and went to the place. They looked high and low, in trash cans, in corners and under the bench where we had rested. NO EGGPLANT. Our HC even went to the people who worked in the place the bench was and asked if they had found or even seen an EGGPLANT. {She returned mumbling something about these people must think her mentally deranged, asking about a missing fiber knitted EGGPLANT.~It was difficult not to blurt out "WHY? WOULD THEY NOTICE A DIFFERENCE IN YOU BEFORE THE LOST EGGPLANT AND AFTER ASKING OF THE LOST EGGPLANT?" Esme looked at me and I quickly realized that silence was safer}.

Needless to say Piper was grief stricken. Over the next few days Piper bleated less and less. Until finally nothing could produce a baa of any kind. We worried.

Our HC, noting the change in pasture morale appeared one day with a Pumpkin. A knitted fiber Pumpkin. As it was then October she suggested we give Piper the Pumpkin and maybe he would forget about his lost EGGPLANT. The Pumpkin would replace the EGGPLANT. I didn't have a lot of hope but we tried. The best way to say it, NOT PRETTY. Finally we told Piper that we had found this Pumpkin but no others. And it seemed so lost and lonely we didn't know what to do for it. Slowly Piper began to warm to it but we could see he still sorely missed his EGGPLANT. We hoped that by Halloween Piper would have bonded with this new knitted fiber vegetable and things would go back to normal.

ANY BETS?

ELLIS THE RAM