Between The Lines
Adam Rudnick's reporter notebook
New Moon Farm home to many surprises
February 17th, 2010 at Wed, 17th, 2010 at 4:12 pm by Adam
Goats at New Moon farm seem to have an appetite for all things paper.
That includes my notebook, apparently.
While farm owner and operator Ellen Felsenthal was giving me a recent tour of her goat rescue facility, Ziggy seemed to think that my white reporters’ notebook looked an awful lot like goat food.
He snuck up and snatched the pad that I had conveniently stashed in my back pocket, flinging it into a nearby puddle.
“He just thinks anything you put in your pockets is fair game,” Felsenthal said with a laugh.
Luckily for Ziggy, I was able to salvage my notes and turn the tour into a story that will likely appear in next week’s print edition.
For those who don’t know what New Moon is, visit the organization’s Web site for more information. It’s basically a goat rescue organization that takes in injured, neglected or unwanted goats and finds them new homes.
Between 40-50 goats call New Moon home on any given week, not counting Felsenthal’s permanent herd of rescue animals that includes 11 goats, two sheep and two horses.
Another small tidbit of information that didn’t make it into my story dealt with New Moon’s recent spike in popularity.
This holiday season, Felsenthal held her annual Christmas tree feed for goats, during which she gives trees that she’s collected a new home — in her goats’ bellies.
She contacted a number of media outlets — including The Arlington Times — to garner attention. The e-mail to us bounced, she said.
Although nobody “bit,” she was able to follow up with KING 5 after she submitted some photos to the news station that she took of the event.
Felsenthal’s photos were apparently good (she does teach photography at Everett Community College), and KING 5 brought a crew out to do a short follow up story.
Shortly after the story, the Associated Press picked up the story and the story exploded.
“It went viral — we had 150,000 hits on our Web site after that, but it only accounted for $40 in donations,” she said.
But the media exposure did do one thing for New Moon — it got her more goats.
“We got a ton of goats after that,” she said. “It was such a surprise.”
It must have been much more surprising than a notebook being swiped by a hungry goat.
Adam Adam Rudnick has worked as a reporter in Snohomish and Skagit counties since graduating from Western Washington University in 2006. Since then, he has written for a number of daily and weekly publications, most recently The Arlington Times and The Marysville Globe.
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