willow

Hi there, I'm planning my chicken run/goat pens and need a good shade tree that i can also occasionally feed to my goats. I was looking at the weeping willow tree because it's edible and gives good shade. However, i have no experience with willows at all. It seems they would like my clay soil...

Right now, I'm pretty amateur at identifying different types of trees and as it is Early Spring here in Northern Michigan, it is hard to identify tree types by their leaves, because there are none.. So I resort to identifying trees by their bark. From what I've seen - to me, this looks like some...