Goats grazing in the trees? Morocco
Strangely for a city girl, I spend a fair amount of time surrounded by goats.
I’m often out in Italy’s Abruzzo region, which once was widely known as a region with more goats than people. And way back in the days of yore, becoming a shepherd was among the most popular career choices for local residents. Not so much of that today, but at least some things never change. Goat cheese is particularly good from this region.
Since my family and I love hiking, so we often combine our vacations with hiking trails and are used to stumbling across goats grazing on lush, green grass.
But travelling in Morocco, I had a bit of a surprise to see the adaptive powers of goats not blessed with as much grass as that consumed by their Italian or European cousins. When travelling in southern Morocco, I was amused to watch the goats – young and old – grazing in the trees.
These goats would scramble up the trees thanks to the handy ‘ladders’ (a.k.a. wobbly piles of stones) constructed for them by their shepherds. And they were quite adept at balancing themselves on the branches to munch away at the leaves.
So be sure to enjoy the tree-grazing goats on your next visit to Morocco. For other Morocco tips see earlier posts on the doors of Essouira, jogging on the beach of Agadir and visiting beautiful Marrakech.
Happy travels!
Very clever those goats… 😀
Speaking about goats, having a old friend – she is a real city girl or was – found a farmer who she married – she always says “The first 25 years of my life I lived among steers wearing ties and shoes, now I live among the real thing”… 😀
Haha. Yes, hungry goats can be quite clever. Loved seeing them scramble over those rickety ‘towers’ . Never could have done it myself… Great story about your city-friend-turned-farmer!
When I was a kid my family had several animals. Even a goat. This is how I learned that a goat can eat almost anything, including clothes drying outside. Years and years later at the San Diego zoo a goat ate the zoo information from my husband’s back pocket.
So no surprise goats can survive with meager grass and be ressourceful enough to reach for the trees.
They are clever and resilient. They can be cute looking too.
Ha! It’s true – goats really do eat anything. Ooh, this means you probably had fresh goat cheese as a child! Whenever we go to France, I come back with my suitcase filled with smelly (and delicious!) chevre. My kids hate it, but my husband and I are in heaven. Time to go back…
In fact we didn’t do anything with this goat. She was pretty old and only kept our lawn very short. 😊
I started to eat chèvre when I was older. At home in Normandy it was camembert. Can be smelly too when too ripe but irresistible with a glass of 🍷