Arlene Gets Her Way

I've mentioned before that the goats prefer shrubs and weeds over grass. Well, my husband has really enjoyed their reactions when he finds a patch of weeds or a small shrubby weed, and gives it to them. They react the way I would if he turned to me and said, "Oh, look. I just found a huge box of chocolates."

I've been a little concerned about this because I've seen him walking around the property eyeing various shrubs, clearly evaluating their palatability for goats. I LIKE our shrubs. I don't want the goats to eat them.

A landscaper came last week, and one of the things he said was that we needed to cut down a small tree that was growing up against one of our other trees. I saw my husband's eyes light up, and I knew what was coming.

One chain saw purchase and a lot of cussing later, the tree was down. And where did it go? The goat pasture, of course.



The goats came running like someone had rung a dinner bell, and proceeded to demolish that poor tree.



You can hardly tell, but there are actually three goats in the picture below. Arlene has practically buried herself in the tree.



So why did I title this 'Arlene gets her way?' Arlene loves shrubs and trees. She stands on her hind legs for minutes at a time to get at low-hanging tree branches. And she knows my husband is a sucker. Whenever he's around, she comes to the fence and stares at him mournfully until he pulls a weed and gives it to her. After weeks of that, there was no way a tree wasn't coming down to feed her.

And now he has a chain saw.

Uh-oh.