Hi everyone, Maddie here from the WSJ. We have a story out this week about the Philly Goat Project and I thought you all would enjoy it!

January is the GOAT for goats in Philly, who get an all-you-can-eat buffet of old Christmas trees.

From Joel Millman in Philadelphia:

>Teddy is on a diet, but for two Saturdays this month he’s delighted to eat his fill.
>
>The 200-pound Nubian breed goat needs to be at 180, his handlers say, to prevent arthritis pain in his knees. Yet, he recently munched contentedly on a buffet of pine needles and twigs at what has become an annual postholiday event here—the recycling of hundreds of discarded Yuletide trees into goat feed and, later, mulch.
>
>“Balsam fir is his favorite. It’s like the Godiva chocolate of pine trees,” says Karen Krivit, 59, the social worker-turned-animal activist who oversees the Philly Goat Project from a farm in Philadelphia’s Germantown section.
>
>…A parade of sedans, SUVs and the occasional pickup truck winds through Germantown’s Awbury Arboretum, each stopping just long enough to remove discarded firs from rooftops, back seats and trunks. Siblings Barb Newbold and Paul Soltis dropped off two trees, paying $20 apiece to the Philly Goat Project to help cover the cost of sorting, stacking and de-tinseling trees.
>
>Near a fire pit where visitors melt marshmallows and chocolate into s’mores, 12-year-old-middle schooler Remy Teel is tending to Oonagh, a Nigerian/Oberhasli mix. She began volunteering when she was eight. She has experienced the pull, quite literally, of goat celebrity at four Philly Goat Project calendar shoots, as goats who may weigh twice as much as she does lunge from their leashes to sample ornamental plants, marketplace produce, or any edibles left unattended.
>
>“They get restless sometimes,” says Remy, whose parents also volunteer on tree donation Saturdays.
>
>Oonagh is one of the few Philly goats not named for a prominent Philadelphian.
>
>Teddy, now five, was an actual kid when he arrived with the other goats to join the project in 2018. His name honors the late vocalist Teddy Pendergrass, an icon of soul music’s Philadelphia Sound. “Holiday” is for jazz singer Billie Holiday, while Anthony honors abolitionist Anthony Benezet. “Theo” is for Theophilus Van Kannel, the 19th-century Philadelphian credited with inventing the revolving door.
>
>…The Philly Goat Project’s next donation day is this Saturday, Jan. 21.

Read more, free with email registration: https://www.wsj.com/articles/discard-christmas-trees-recycling-goats-eat-11673968934?mod=wsjreddit