Tag: Georgia

Internationally known as a producer of television commercials, Steve Colby serves as the director of Pogo Pictures in Atlanta, Georgia. In his spare time, Steve Colby enjoys raising Nigerian dwarf goats, a popular breed of hooved animals known for their friendliness and milk productivity.

Proportioned like an ordinary goat, the male Nigerian dwarf goat measures 17 to 23.5 inches from the ground to the withers (the part of the back located between the shoulder blades). The female’s height is about 22 inches. Adult goats weigh around 75 pounds and sport variations of black, gold, and chocolate, often with white mixed in. Offspring mature quickly, breeding as early as seven weeks.

The goats have a tractable, amiable disposition and make good pets. They are also prized for the rich, sweet flavor of their milk, which is well suited to making butter and cheese. Producing one or two quarts per day, they can be milked for up to ten months. Adding to their popularity is their adaptability to small yards.

The goats lineage can be traced to western and central Africa, where they are valued for their resistance to tsetse flies. First housed in America in research centers and zoos, one source places their arrival in the US as early at 1918. They are registered by the American Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Association and the Nigerian Dwarf Goat Association, and have been recognized as a breed since the 1980s.

A director with Pogo Pictures in Atlanta, Georgia, Steve Colby has made commercials for a number of Fortune 100 companies. To relax, Steve Colby plays four stringed instruments, one of which is the ukulele.

Instantly identifiable by people around the world, the unique look and sound of the ukulele almost universally conjures images of the Hawaiian Islands. While its reputation as a distinctly Hawaiian instrument is certainly valid, the ukulele likely didn’t originate in the region.

Most historians trace the origins of the ukulele to Portugal and a small guitar-like instrument called the machete de braga. When Portuguese immigrants came to the Hawaiian Islands in the late 1800s to work in the sugarcane fields, they brought these instruments with them.

Legend has it that a particular Portuguese immigrant named Joao Fernandez began playing his machete de braga before native Hawaiians, who renamed his instrument “ukulele” in honor of his quick and nimble fretboard work. In the Hawaiian language, the word “ukulele” translates to “jumping flea.”

From their four strings to their short necks, the machete de braga and the modern ukulele share much in common. Therefore, most experts assume that the ukulele is simply a machete de braga with a few creative adaptations and redesigned features.