First of all, let's be kind to New Jersey. After all, this tiny state cannot help that it leads our nation in population density and toxic waste dumps and is also the car-theft capital of the world. Try to get past the fact that New Jersey boasts the highest cost-of-living in the U.S. and remember instead pleasant things like the Miss America pageant, Monopoly, the world's longest boardwalk and fifty resort towns. Site of my favorite childhood vacations, New Jersey was once the home of my beloved grandmother and currently hosts one of Emerson and Elliot's best friends. The goats adore my New Jersey friend, who takes them for walks no matter how hot the weather, who doesn't complain when Emerson rubs his itchy horn scur on her leather purse and who memorizes which specific weeds they prefer, all the better to pamper them...
So, nothing against the Garden State. Some stories, however, just need to be shared.
We live in an area surrounded by farmland - endless fields of corn, soybeans and wheat. Tractors, barns, and livestock are as common a sight to my family as are the subways, buses and towering skyscrapers of nearby Manhattan to my Jersey friends. On their recent visit here (right after the worst of the snow), my city friends fought their way past the enthusiastic greetings of two very annoying goats and then asked this question:
"Just up the road we passed a field full of animals standing in the deep snow, not moving, like statues. We wondered, are those decorative cardboard cows?"
Now I know what I did wrong five years ago - I should have just gotten cardboard goats!!
(And by the way, New Jersey boasts not only Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, but is the site where the ice cream cone was originally invented. Love you, NJ!)
