Devious Goats Wander The Desert

Goats eat everything. They’re non-discriminatory, often invasive, and utterly resistant to containment. Fencing that can hold water, as the saying goes, and they occasionally scale heights that defy both expectations and their own physiology. 

On average, their reign is brief. About 10 years. Except for one specimen: McGinty, the anomaly, who outlived them all, stubbornly refusing to succumb to death, unwilling to be anything but the goat for a remarkable 23 years.

May McGinty never be forgotten.

Anyway, the theme for Comment of the Month, February, is goats. Plural.

As you may have read, the lease for Gnaraloo Station is now available, priced at a tidy $17 million. However, Paul Richardson, the current lease-holder, an Irishman and goat herder of some renown, has allowed his herd to run amok. A peculiar sight, according to a friend who spent a few months there last Winter. Goats, everywhere. Thousands of them, hungry hungry goats, leaving the vegetation devoured. Now nothing but barren earth. Now the slightest breeze, a dust storm of red dirt.

Paul defended the goats’ innocence, though it’s a hard argument to digest. In much the same vein, if you’ve spent any time on this website, you might’ve caught Kelly Slater’s Stab In The Dark series, where he handpicked his own shaper as the greatest of the decade, while claiming he had no idea. Goats in the group chat, indeed. Here’s the COTM winner for February:

Miquail Jackson, send proof of your Disqus account to [email protected] to claim your prize.

Until next month.