WWFB: GOAT Edition
The scene: The hills above Hvar, Croatia, in a village overlooking the port. It doesn’t get much more idyllic than this.
Our Airbnb was perched on a steep hillside and the village was down below…down hundreds of steps interrupted here and there by narrow streets lined with stone houses and ancient stone walls adorned by grapevines and wild blackberries.
In the early part of our walk down to the village, we would pass a house with a giant fig tree whose branches overstretched the sidewalk. Some of the figs had fallen to the ground, which seemed like a sad end to such glorious fruits. I took it upon myself to rescue a few particularly ripe figs on each leg of our round trip, reasoning that in a few minutes or hours, they would end up on the sidewalk, and the homeowner would probably prefer the fruit be enjoyed by someone other than the ants. (Not sure if that is a valid legal defense, but that would be my angle, anyway.)
We went down to the village twice a day, so four times a day we passed by this goat who was tied up in his yard, hanging out in a stone and wood shelter with a corrugated metal roof. Each time we passed, I sang out, “Hello, Mr. Goat!” and introduced myself as someone who would love to be his friend and definitely did not want to eat him.
Much to my disappointment, Mr. Goat kept his back turned or otherwise showed no interest in engaging. Why was he ignoring me? Maybe he only spoke Croatian?
Finally…FINALLY!…on Day 3, Mr. Goat trusted me enough to come over and say hi back!
I held out a handful of wild blackberries I’d picked from a bush down the path. That got his attention!
Turns out I befriended the world’s most finicky goat. Mr. Goat loved those blackberries, but literally sneezed at the grapes I picked from the vine just minutes earlier, and turned up his nose at the fresh figs I had liberated from the nearby tree. Don’t goats eat tin cans and plastic bags?!
VERDICT: 7/10 Would pet again, but damn, that’s one picky goat!
