Hey!
What's that in ELSIE's hand???
It's a POTATO CHip!
Get 'im!!!
Posted on 06/16/2013 5:09:43 PM PDT by nickcarraway
We roared across the Wyoming-Utah border at sunset; windows down, stereo cranked, muffler cracked. Behind the wheel was a well-tattooed, pierced 24-year-old. Riding shotgun, a 44-year-old writer with three-day-old stubble (that would be me). And in the back, buried beneath coloring books and blankets, a cherubic boy. We were all three in search of goats.
“This truck is going to fall apart,” announced my 4-year-old son, Bodi, his mouth full of baby carrots. Abe, a longtime family friend, ignored the comment, pushing his rusty Toyota even faster. Sage and tumbleweed stretched across the flatlands; beyond, on the horizon, was our destination: the Uinta Mountains, a half-million acres of forgotten wilderness.
Ten miles past Sulphur Creek Reservoir, we turned down an unmarked dirt lane. Clay Zimmerman, a 56-year-old retired Air Force mechanic, waited for us outside a vinyl-sided house. Clay may be the only person on the entire planet who rents pack goats. (Pack goats are as beloved as household pets to their handlers, and if there were any other goat renters out there, I couldn’t find them.)
The argument for goat packing goes something like this: To begin, as relatively small animals, they are easy to handle. Requiring neither lead nor halter, trained goats will happily follow in a hiker’s footsteps all day. Better still, goats can go places horses can’t, eat things horses won’t (including woody and poisonous plants) and survive for days without water. According to John Mionczynski — whose book, “The Pack Goat,” I’d stumbled upon years earlier — properly trained goats make strong, hardworking and disciplined pack animals, with an intelligence and loyalty that rivals dogs’.
(Excerpt) Read more at travel.nytimes.com ...
You know me too well.
Work for the NSA?
They'll steal your heart! - when they are little.
Then they steal anything they can get their teeth on!
AMEN!
My four thumpheads are grown; but still have their winning ways.
Hey!
What's that in ELSIE's hand???
It's a POTATO CHip!
Get 'im!!!
Doesn't he know that HE carries the food; and then WE eat it?
Baaaaaaad idea to try something new on us!
I’m not a granny but we’ve had dairy goats for 25 years. Never packed with them but really enjoyed the article.
Around Escalante is great country. You just don’t go the same time of the year as in the Uintas. Late fall, early spring are best. Even winter, if you hit a warm dry stretch.
Gonna finish up our trip to Utah in the Red Caves of Mount Carmel. Oh No just look at the steep walls. And I hear there is a covey of Rattle Snakes in there...I heard that Binger and his grand kids were in there last night.
Shhhh, its a secret, you must have seen the drone I sent your way......:O)
I really do get a couple of A-10’s that fly over the hig voltage power transmission lines that are very close to my property.
Seems like Friday afternoons are their practice times.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.