FALLS VILLAGE — Carly Sugar told a small group everything they ever wanted to know about goats on a brisk Sunday morning, Sept. 26, at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center.
The goat tour was part of the Housatonic Heritage walk series.
Sugar, of Detroit, Mich., has been working at the center for about two years.
She conceded she doesn’t have a great deal of formal training in goat-related matters — but two years of hands-on goat experience certainly appeared (to a non-goatly visitor) to have paid off.
She was accompanied by two pygmy goats, named Luna and Kolhav (Hebrew for “star”), who regularly dashed off to investigate things, only to return when they heard Sugar rattle the food container.
On the short walk to the goat area, Luna and Kolhav stopped for a tasty snack of poison ivy.
Asked how goats can eat just about anything without ill effects, Sugar said goats evolved in regions with scarce food resources and thus became capable of eating whatever was on offer.
At the goat enclosures, Nubian milking goats were kept separate from the pygmies.
The latter are aggressive with other goats, Sugar explained. As if on cue, Kolhav attempted a head butt on one of the Nubians, who had jumped up on the fence to see what was happening.
But the pygmy goats are good with children, Sugar continued as she kindly but firmly repelled a Nubian goat breakout.
“They are really smart,” she said of her bleating, mischievous charges, who were busy mounting a second escape attempt at a rickety section of fence.
“That’s what makes them annoying.”
The Heritage Walks began Sept. 4 and will end this weekend, Oct. 2 and 3. Get the schedule at https://housatonicheritage.org/events/heritage-walks/.
Cella’s paintings are tucked in almost every available space thoughout Little Store Antiques. L. Tomaino
