"Mares Eat Oats, and Goats Eat Coats..Little Lambs Eat Ivy"

My Daddy whistled that tune about the mares and oats and goats and coats when I was a little girl....

Hinds County Gazette Febuary 7 2008

Christiansen's Comments

I have always been a great admirer of Goats... even though I have never known any goats personally… the only goats had any acquaintance with at all, were on the pages of children’s books…Remember Three Billy Goat Gruff and their dealings with the Troll that lived under the bridge? In other stories the goats were cheerfully pulling very lucky children around in carts, taking them on magnificent adventures.
After we moved to Edwards, and we began to clean up this yard, clearing it of unwanted vegetation…the vines were particularly vicious …it came to me out of the blue “Get a goat! Goats will eat anything!”…that was their reputation in the children’s books… In many pictures they were eating clothes right off the clothesline or had tin cans hanging out of their mouths.
John answer was an emphatic “No” to my goat scheme….Not for any reason that I felt was a good reason…but every time I brought it up. He said “no” in that tone that I knew….no matter what, I would not be getting a goat and it would be a waste of my time to whine, beg or throw a fit.
Fast forward….to the very recent past…. 3 year old, Haley Cannada, Jacqueline and Russell’s granddaughter, Scott and Lesley’s daughter took a notion she wanted a goat…So she ask her grandpa Russell for one.
I asked Russell, “Are you really going to get Haley a goat?”
He said “Of course”
Can you believe it! It was that easy for Haley to get a goat!? So I said to Russell, I want a goat….He said “OK”…Can you believe it! We each get our very own goat! We do not have to share a goat!
We haven’t gotten our goats yet…Russell is looking for the small goats…I suppose he thinks Haley is too little to handle a big goat and I am too old to handle a big goat.
I am so excited…I have been telling everybody…when I told my friend and Haley’s great Aunt Peggy, about our good fortune involving the goats…Peggy thought she might want a goat too, but she didn’t know if Keith would let her have one…I told her if she wanted a goat…”Go ask Russell, he doesn’t say, no”
I been thinking about what to name my goat, daughter Angela thought Etta would be nice…but then this morning when she called she thought, “Flower” would be even better…”So when she eats everything in your back yard you will still have a Flower.” It took her all night to think up that “Funny”…
I gotta go…see about a fence to keep Flower in, that is, when I am not walking her around Edwards….I went to the goat show at the fairgrounds last week and this man had a collar and leash on his goat, leading him around like a dog….So you be watching for us…I will let you pet her.
And I got to check and see if the Hardware store in Bolton has goat food…They manufacture food for goats….that sort of surprises me…. I guess goats don’t eat tin cans anymore and clothes lines are becoming a very rare sight indeed.
Call if you need