The Story of Tinsel The Reindeer
December 31, 2002
Tinsel with Erin and Preston Thanksgiving day 2002
Tinsel, Erin and Preston and their version of, "Speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil".
On December 19th, Tinsel feel ill – gravely ill in fact. She was her normal self just three hours earlier, but suddenly was in great distress. We alerted a veterinarian immediately. She was dispatched to our farm and arrived within a half an hour. That’s pretty good timing -- in country driving, since we are located 20 minutes from the nearest town. She had been at a farm in the area vaccinating two reindeer – what’s the odds of THAT?
She did a quick on site examination and urged us to rush her to emergency. Was it a blockage of some sort? Perhaps poisoning? The vet had suspected that the cob (oats) that Tinsel loved so much was to blame, but her abrupt decline in health was too fast to explain it away that easily. No time for answers, so we carried Tinsel gently and loaded her right into the back of our warm Range Rover…just as we would for one of our farm dogs.
I followed the vet’s truck slowly towards town. Tim stayed behind with the kids. Preston (he’s three now), told him that the “Reindeer Doctor was a princess”.
Once at the clinic, everything was kicked into high gear. A surgeon was summoned along with a staff to assist. They worked away for two hours trying to make her better. Fluids and medications were administered. Samples were taken. It became clear at that point that the only person that could help Tinsel was Santa himself. It was time to contact the North Pole.
Tinsel didn’t return to the farm that night. Christmas Eve arrived and Erin (4 ½) and Preston watched the night sky in search of Tinsel helping with Santa’s sleigh. After some searching and listening for the sound of distant sleigh bells, Preston suggested, “Maybe Tinsel is stuck in a tree?”
Well, there are horse lovers, cow lovers and those that love chickens, but we’ve experienced a reindeer too. Tinsel was such amazing creature. The magic of the three short weeks we had her here was enough to sell us. Tim and I have decided that Black Pond Farm will never be without reindeer again. Santa will be returning Tinsel in the near future (after another stop-over in Reardan Washington), but this time he will be bringing TWO reindeer back to our farm for training!
This holiday season at the farm was the year of the reindeer. Tim turned 40 in November and all he wanted was a reindeer (and no silly “over the hill” wise-cracks).
Tinsel the reindeer arrived just before
Thanksgiving from the North Pole (with a quick stop in Reardan
Washington). She was just
under 6 months old and just as sweet as could be.
Tinsel was already trained so that we could walk her around with a
halter and lead rope, but she needed to get over being shy.
She quickly warmed up to us – with the help of lots of tasty cob (oats). Why, she’d do back-flips for the stuff!
Within days, her personality really shined through. She had the playful nature of a goat (without the mischievousness) and the gentle affection of a big dog.
The kids knew that we were going to help train her at Black Pond Farm so that when she grew up she could help Santa pull his sleigh. Tim and I were ready to show her at the fair, but do you realize how difficult it is to find a flashy “reindeer halter?! The stores don’t stock nice red leather reindeer sized halters…with sleigh bells on them. Go figure.
We had to special order reindeer food too. The bag actually says, “REINDEER FOOD PELLETS” on it. The guy at the feed store said he had so much fun calling their suppliers IN DECEMBER asking about the availability of reindeer food. He kept after it until he found some too, then thanked us for all the fun he had doing it. When I went in to pick it up there was quite a stir in the store. Turns out that the employees were curious to see what kind of person would have a reindeer. They expected me to come in wearing a red suit and they were ACTUALLY disappointed!
Adventures From Black Pond Farm