Cordelia the goat. “Cordy,” as I call her, is owned by Sonja Hedlund of Apple Pond Farm in Callicoon Center, but last month she became a temporary resident at the Butterfly Barn in Milanville, PA, where she shares the ground floor of a 90-year-old bank barn with 10 chickens and Basil, the resident goat.

Cordy promptly learned the ropes: how to pilfer the chickens’ grain, and, as the photograph shows, how to unhook the barnyard gate. The empty eyelet near her nose testifies to her skill—and explains how she contrived to raid a bed of chrysanthemums the night before.