Never Trust a Goat!

He may look sweet and innocent...but don't let the baby blue eyes fool you. He's a scoundrel. Recently our family went away for a weekend, and I warily entrusted the goats to a new pet-sitter as our regular sitter (a 4H farm girl who raises goats herself) was unavailable. A bit nervous, I carefully penned three pages of instructions about the care of the goats - feeding schedule, daily medication doses, emergency vet number, common goat emergencies etc. I found space at the end to scribble a note about the cats as well as our contact information and cell phones, then marked the most important parts in red. It would only be a weekend, after all - as long as they followed my directions, all should be fine.

I only forgot one critical piece of information. NOTE: Read the instructions in the kitchen before going to the goat pen. Apparently, my new caregiver and her helpers (wise move - bringing reinforcements!) brought the papers into the pen with them, intending to read them step-by-step as they measured out grain and medications. I should have warned them that, after I get the mail every day, I sometimes give the boys an envelope to share. Spying what he likely thought was a yummy snack, Elliot snatched all the papers right out of his feeder's hand and quickly slurped them up - chew - swallow - gone. (And he didn't even share with Emerson!) Smooth move, Ellie. Oh, just give us buckets of grain and four apples a day and let us out to run free...Reminds me of when we were younger and my sisters and I would hide the note for the babysitter and tell her we were allowed to stay up until midnight...somehow she never believed us.