Meet the Goats

The goats are doing a fantastic job with the brush! Tomorrow we'll post some shots of their progress, but for tonight, we thought we'd introduce everyone.

First two of the pygmies:

Sugar on top and Spice below.

They are very friendly and are the flashiest of the crew.

They are similar looking but can be distinguished by ear color (Spice's are brown and Sugar's are almost white) and the fact that Spice has horns (hard to see in the picture, but they are there).

Sugar about to start on a new patch of ivy.










This is Delight, a very sweet, larger goat. Delight has been tethered nearest the house and likes to look into Trio and Kali's bedrooms.







Delight working on some of the ivy outside Kalina's window.














Bridget is another one of the pygmies. She is a beautiful fawn color and likes to jump on top of the canoe.

You can see she is doing a nice job on the ivy (there was no ground visible before today).








Here's Obie, one of the bigger goats, working hard as usual.

Another of the larger goats, the goat with no name - or Noname. Noname is kind of a bully and sometimes shoves the other goats and occasionally people. But he makes up for it with a great smile!

Like Sugar and Spice, Google and Goggle are siblings. We don't know which is which (not even the Goat Lady can tell them apart. One has a black front leg - I'm going to say that one is Goggle for now...

Goggle (or is it Google?)

Google (or is it Goggle?)

Google (Goggle?) shows off some fine work on a tree trunk.


















So that's the cast of characters - thanks for reading. Check back tomorrow for a report on their progress and more pictures.

They're Here!

Right on schedule, a van full of goats pulled into our driveway this evening.

Without wasting any time, Jill (www.thegoatlady.org) and her partner set the tether stakes and unloaded the goats two by two.

Within seconds of placing the first two goats, Sugar and Spice started stripping leaves from the nearest blackberry bush.

Bridget and No-Name quickly reared up to start ripping ivy off tree trunks (and Bridget enjoyed jumping on top of the canoe).

Obie and Delight were put next to the house, where when she takes a break from eating, Delight alternates between checking out the tetherball and looking right in Trio's window (to her delight).

Google and Gaggle also settled right in pulling ivy leaves and rearing up to trim low-handing cedar boughs.

Triona and the next door neighbors got friendly with the goats by feeding them grass bunches, which they were more than happy to eat in between mouthfuls of blackberry, ivy and dandelions.

Check back tomorrow for more pictures of their progress...

The goats are coming...

Since moving into our house seven years ago, we've watched the ivy well up from the ravine, start to creep across the lawn, climb up the house and even penetrate into our closet.

Not to be outdone, the blackberry has woven into a solid canopy, 20 feet high in some places with stalks as thick as a small child's arm. In the summer, nightshade and morning glory vines tie it all together into an impenetrable mass.

Our paltry attempts to keep it all in check have failed (even with the great help of some very hard working teenagers), and we'd really like to do more than just keep it in check. We want our daughters to be able to play in the back woods without being afraid of being swallowed whole by the weeds.
We've been talking about enlisting the help of some goats to do the heavy lifting for us for a few years, but for one reason or another, haven't managed to get it together.

Enter, the Goat Lady (www.thegoatlady.org), offering reasonably-priced, tether-trained rental goats to people like us! She'll be bringing eight goats here this evening for about two weeks.

They've got a lot of work to do...

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