Long time followers/listeners/readers of mine know that I love goats. My family raised two pygmy goats from 6 weeks (bottle feeding) to now. Sadly, we lost our female goat a couple of years ago, but we still have our friendly old male goat.
That being said, I naturally gravitated to this headline from Google’s blog today about goats doing their yard maintenance. Apparently, this is quite a big business in California. Hmmmm…..
Official Google Blog: Mowing with goats.
This is old news to Californians, but we’re glad the rest of the world is interested. Goats are a good non-petroleum-fueled way to clear brush from fire-prone parks and open spaces. They fertilize, too!
One year when a son of mine attended a school in East Oakland, I was staggered to drive down the hill and see a phalanx of goats grazing in front of a Spanish-style church, part of an old college in the East Oakland hills. THe vista looked like Spain. In another block we were square in the middle of the ‘hood, with the liquor stores, the donut-tracks on the streets, the drug dealers, etc.
All our hills are goat-trimmed. The wildflowers in Redwood Park are gorgeous this year, and if you look closely you can see tiny dried-up pellets of goat turds strewn amongst the blossoms.
East Bay Regional parks also hire draft horses to log timber in steep areas where bobcats or big dozers would erode the hillsides.
Good point…I’ve read a few of these articles in the past. And as a goat owner, the tie in with Google was too irresistible not to post.
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