Wednesday May 18, 2005

We've had the winter that never seems to leave; it's the month of May and the creekbed in the back of the house, the one that should be down to a trickle, is still gurgling. The stints of warm weather between the storm systems have made for almost tropical conditions (hint to my boss: I'd still take that break in Kauai, were it handed to me). The earth is teeming with flora... or maybe they're just weeds (yep).

It's the time of year when the weed whackers are whacking and leaf barrels are brimming. But instead of hiring a legion of landscapers to clear the hillside across the street from me, the church across the street from me engages the services of goats. Several dozen of them, perhaps over a hundred, in fact.

Apparently Goats R Us will cordon off areas of land and release their goats on to it to let them.... be goats. The bleating army of horned munching machines made quick work of the hillside. Clearing the ground cover of grass and weeds, nibbling away at the shrubs and getting up on their hind legs to pick at the trees, the goats didn't take long to transform the wild overgrown landscape into one shorn back to earth.