January 9
My friend Sherry (see May 10 ) told me the other day that I should stop by to see a new family that had moved into a very nice home on acreage in the area. "They are thinking of getting goats and maybe you can sell them some!" she excitedly exclaimed. I asked her what they wanted them for, since I knew the property in question and it certainly wasn't overgrown enough for them to need brush-eaters. "He's a lawyer in Seattle," she said as though that explained anything. "They want goats because they like feta." "BECAUSE THEY LIKE FETA???!!!" I shrieked. Getting goats because you like feta is like buying a lumbermill because you like toothpicks. And there was another consideration in this potential goat cheese operation: "Is he married? Did you talk to his wife?" "He's married and they have two little girls." The plot not only thickened, it separated into curds as we goat folk might say. What's wrong with this picture? A fairly young and successful Seattle attorney married a woman who could hardly wait to move to the country and learn how to make goat cheese? Starting with the goat? I can see her as a pioneer woman, baby tied to the milking parlor door so Mama will have two hands free to milk the goat; baby tied to the garden gate so Mama can pick those beans and dig those spuds. I don't think so. This has all the earmarks of a His dream to me. I wonder what the Hers dream is? I will bet big bucks (no pun intended) that there's no goat in it. I can't wait to meet these people.
Tomorrow: More Bad Reasons to Buy a Goat ***
|
The
odds are in your favor that there will be no time during your life
when you will seriously consider goat ownership. Pulling statistics
out of thin air, I would say that probably 75% of all U.S. citizens
live where keeping a goat would not only be unlikely but would also
be illegal. For most people born into normal circumstances, it just
isn't something that will ever come up. However, it might.
The odds are against anyone choking to death in front of you, either,
but it's still a good idea to know the Heimlich Maneuver. So in that
spirit...
