GOAT TELL IT | Carl Sandburg Farm

Lillian Paula Sandburg was a prize winning dairy goat breeder married to poet Carl Sandburg. Carl spent most of his time with words, 'Paula' most of hers with her goats. This video celebrates the accomplishments of the lesser known Sandburg and features the progeny of Paula's goats, filmed at Connemara Farm in North Carolina.

'Paula Sandburg was a brilliant woman, a school teacher, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Chicago. Although better-educated than Sandburg, who dropped out of high school and left Lombard College before completing his degree, she decided early on that her life would be subservient to his. Paula had fallen in love first with his poetry, and she regarded him as a wunderkind.

Between 1935 and 1966, Paula Sandburg… raised champion dairy goats. Beginning her herd for practical reasons when Carl was a struggling poet in Michigan, Paula became fascinated by the possibilities of genetic manipulation. As her husband became successful as a writer, she grew to national prominence as a dairy goat breeder. By the time they moved to North Carolina in 1945, Mrs. Sandburg was famous in her own right for her goats.'
The Year of the Goat

'Paula tended goats – prize animals who, in 1940, won the Grand Champion Toggenburg silver cup and the Grand Champion Nubian golden cup. She was “an intellectual farmer,” in the words of a neighbor. She specialized in breeding champions and one year established an all-time record with a goat that produced 5,760 pounds of milk.'
Barbara Stodola, Lake 

The sober-faced goat crops grass next to the sidewalk.
A clinking chain connects the collar of the goat with a steel pin
      driven in the ground.
Next to the sidewalk the goat crops November grass,
Pauses seldom, halts not at all, incessantly goes after the grass.
Carl Sandburg, Suburban Sicilian Sketches

For the story of how we even know about Carl to revere him, Paula and her goats tell it best.