Monday, August 11, 2014

move over, teddybears


because everyone loves a picnic!

I dragged some freshcut branches to the upper paddock this morning.


Black birch: always a crowd favorite!
Each branch puts out many lateral side-branches, 
so if a big branch is hung on a fence,
goats on both sides have equal access to lots of leaves.

Betula

Wildlife note:
moose also love black birch (Betula lenta).
 I recall a natural resources debate about the reason for this,
and I stand firmly by my theory:
moose want minty-fresh breath.

Vinca

Goats are very particular about which leaf they wish to eat.

Acer

Very, very particular.

LeShodu

Even the babies:

Azalea and her mama, Lily of the Valley

Dara and his mama, LeShodu

Of course, in the snap below,
Betula is reaching for a leaf on Lily's side of the fence,
and vice versa.
Naturally.

My fault.
I don't know what I was thinking,
distributing All The Best Leaves
on the Other Side.


 I apologize for the quality of these pictures.
They are like not-really-very-good family holiday snaps
where a fuzzy subject is also half out of the frame.
I was mostly holding the camera over my head
and optimistically shooting down through the foliage.
9 out of 10 images looked like this:



But just in case you've never been to a goats' picnic before,
I wanted to invite you to this one.
Go on, nibble a twig.
Minty-fresh breath isn't just for moose!
~~~~~