It’s the time of year when discarded evergreens pile up at transfer stations across New Hampshire. But in Durham, one town’s trash is another goat’s treasure.
Julie Kelley, a member of the town’s integrated waste management advisory committee, learned Durham burned the pile of Christmas trees that accumulate every January. And then she found out that in nearby Lee, Hickory Nut Farm had a herd of goats who loved to eat evergreens.
“I just connected the dots and thought, well, next year we’re going to try and do something different,” she said.
Kelley got in touch with the local Scouting America troop. On a recent, slippery Saturday morning, a handful of Scouts showed up to haul dozens of trees onto pickup trucks and trailers. The team only found one stowaway ornament still hanging on a branch.
Once the trees made it to Hickory Nut Farm, the Scouts stacked them in a neat pile along a fenceline near the goat pen.
Donna-Lee Wood, who owns the farm, said that pile can grow to 15 feet tall and 30 feet wide, as people drop off their trees throughout the season. Her 11 goats can go through two or three trees a day — trees that may otherwise be releasing climate-polluting gas when being burned or decomposing in a landfill.
The goats are also fed grains and hay. But Hannah Brown, who was working at the farm on Saturday morning, said the trees are their favorite.
“They love them,” she said. “It's a bit of a Christmas tree graveyard in here, because you drop a Christmas tree in and they just go crazy for it.”
Scout Sophia Bennett launched trees twice her size onto the pile next to the goat pen, ending the morning covered in evergreen needles. She said she liked any project involving trees. But this one had lots of benefits – for the goats, and also for the planet.
“All these trees would have been burned. And that's really not good for the environment, because then we're just wasting trees,” she said. “These goats eating it is way more cute and a lot more productive.”
