SMOKE RIDGE DIARY
Proper phone etiquette pays off in the long run
What a difference a week makes.
The only callers that I talk to on either our home telephone or my own cell phone are usually calling because Smoke Ridge raises and delivers meat goats, and the callers are curious about why, how, when and how much there is to raising meat goats. It’s been decades since anyone called us asking for slaughter goats, or goats with big horns so they could turn them loose and let people hunt them for the trophies of their horns. Are those of you who know me already laughing, imagining how THAT call went? Nope, I wasn’t very gracious in my refusal to even consider selling any bucks with nice wide racks to the trophy hunters. Not even close! Yes, I understand that people need to eat, and we send hundreds of wether goats per year into the human food chain. But shooting a buck just because he has a nice rack? Hmm, let me try to think of a kind way to comment on that thought. Nope, can’t find a kind comment, sorry!
Hunting for food is understandable but by the time that a buck has a nice set of horns, he REEKS and getting meat off his carcass
BY YVONNE ZWEEDE-TUCKER
would be almost impossible to do without getting the taint of buck onto the meat. Yes, I have eaten buck sausage. No, I did not like the flavor and will pass on the chance to have more.
Goat meat harvested from wethers or old does is absolutely de-
licious. Sorry, bucks, you are super important to our businesses and your perfume makes the girl-goats leave any inhibitions far behind them, but we’ll let the lady-goats appreciate it!
I once poured bleach on my hands after handling bucks, trying to get rid of buck scent, and then had hands that smelled like bleached buck. I was very happy to discover that goat’s milk soap cleaned buck smell off of human hands!
Back to never assuming that you can be short with a caller: I received a call from a number that showed no name on the little screen on my cell phone, and I was already bristling, expecting a tele- marketing ploy, when I realized that the caller had a slight accent. Embarrassed, as I’d already had lunch and had absolutely NO excuse for being grumpy, I took a deep breath and answered with a smile in my voice. Not only did my good attitude not help, I was taken to task by a gentleman who was not only unhappy at having to
8 Goat Rancher | October 2021
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