News from Vermont #353 Them Humans

Howyadoin’? I’m James, a fixed male goat livin’ up here on County Road. You’ll have to excuse me but right now I’m eatin’ and oh boy, is this stuff good! My buddy Rex is here with me and we’ll both tell ya, there’s nothin’ like a fir tree t’quench th’old palette. We live right out in back of a country store, I think it’s called Morse Farm. It’s not a baaaad place. We have a great view to the south. An ol’ guy with a white beard comes every mornin’ and brings us our food, water, and usually throws us that great piece de resistance a few well chosen boughs. Life is good. We have lots of visitors, probably ’cause we’re cute, smart, and have great personalities. The only time they think we’re stupid is when we poop in our straw bed but I’d say the joke’s on them…y’see, sleepin’ on poop keeps us warm all wintah long!

Amusin’ the Human

Back in December, somethin’ strange was happenin’. Just to the north of our area, they brought in a veritable smorgasbord of fir trees. They were all nice lookin’ trees, well balanced and filled out, but heck, we’re not too interested in food presentation…those silly humans who put a sprig of parsley on a steak…we say “hold the steak and give us the parsley”! All month long, people drove in with their SUVs and pickup trucks. Whole families would pile out and head right to those trees. They’d reach in and fluff out the boughs. They’d bend down, examine the stumps, and stand on their tip-toes t’look at the tops. Now get this…some of them even brought a tape measure, reeled it out and measured those trees…my gracious, they must have had some mighty fussy goats back home! Th’old guy with a white beard twirled them trees round and round, sometimes enough t’make ol’ James dizzy. We even saw long family discussions over which tree to select but finally they’d decide on one. The old guy would take it, stuff it into a funnel, pull it through, and it would come out th’other end all netted up like one-a-them smoked hams (Gasp…if they’ll eat pigs, would they eat goats?…naaaah!)

In spite of my last thought, I’ll give those humans the benefit of the doubt. Even though they went way above and beyond, their intentions were good…gettin’ something special, you know. Just one thing really puzzles us: since this ain’t our first rodeo (we’ve lived here a couple years now), this “giftin’ for yer goat” seems to only go on in December. And on top a that, those people seemed different. They were always in a big hurry and, bein’ animals, we have the ability to “sniff out” human emotions…many of them were mighty uptight! We wonder why they’d get this way over something that’s s’posed to be so pleasant. God knows, we appreciate the gift of a good tree.