Billy Goat Update
The Thriller reminded me that I haven't written anything about Billy of late. Well, I am happy to report that I found some suitable cornmeal down in Surry County, mixed up the recipe just like Clifford said and fed it to Billy. He's now in high spirits!
You would think a goat would have a killer digestive track. Indeed, NC State University reports that goats "have been successfully used for the biological control of abandoned farmland pastures invaded by herbaceous weeds, vines, multiflora rose bushes and hardwood saplings." And, with good results for both goat and farmland. Not my Billy! No tin cans and rose bushes for him. No, Sir. It's a special prepared diet.
We, of course, still don't know just what kind of goat Billy might be. He does look a little like this Myotonic Goat, however.
From what I've read, the Myotonic Goat is also called the Stiff Leg, Wooden Leg or Tennessee Fainting Goat. If you scare it, the thing will often fall over ("faint") and lie stiff for a few seconds. Seems the "fight or flight" chemicals which normally rush to the muscles are absent in the Myotonic Goat, causing it to tip over from fright.
Kinda reminds me of one of my old relatives. You see, when the brewer and stiller in the Moravian community of Salem retired back in Colonial times, they sent to Bethlehem, PA for his replacement. That, of course, would be the first relative on my Mother's side who came to North Carolina in the 1750's. It was reported in the Moravian records some years later that his grandson died of severe burns when, afflicted with the "staggering sickness" as it was translated from the German, he fell into the fire while tending his still.
But, then again, that might have been a different kind of myotonia.
You would think a goat would have a killer digestive track. Indeed, NC State University reports that goats "have been successfully used for the biological control of abandoned farmland pastures invaded by herbaceous weeds, vines, multiflora rose bushes and hardwood saplings." And, with good results for both goat and farmland. Not my Billy! No tin cans and rose bushes for him. No, Sir. It's a special prepared diet.
We, of course, still don't know just what kind of goat Billy might be. He does look a little like this Myotonic Goat, however.
From what I've read, the Myotonic Goat is also called the Stiff Leg, Wooden Leg or Tennessee Fainting Goat. If you scare it, the thing will often fall over ("faint") and lie stiff for a few seconds. Seems the "fight or flight" chemicals which normally rush to the muscles are absent in the Myotonic Goat, causing it to tip over from fright.
Kinda reminds me of one of my old relatives. You see, when the brewer and stiller in the Moravian community of Salem retired back in Colonial times, they sent to Bethlehem, PA for his replacement. That, of course, would be the first relative on my Mother's side who came to North Carolina in the 1750's. It was reported in the Moravian records some years later that his grandson died of severe burns when, afflicted with the "staggering sickness" as it was translated from the German, he fell into the fire while tending his still.
But, then again, that might have been a different kind of myotonia.
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