Residents of a dozen houses on 10th Place West between West Barrett and West Fulton streets have banded together to clear off a steep easement on one side of the street that had become overgrown with stubborn blackberry bushes and engulfed by English ivy.
But instead of doing the backbreaking and prickly work themselves, the neighborhood residents on Queen Anne Hill have opted for another method.
They're using 19 goats hired from the Goat Lady in Duvall to chow down on the foliage, said Cindy Pierce, one of the residents on the street.
The Goat Lady is Jill Johnson, a Kirkland middle-school math teacher in real life. Johnson said she and her husband got goats originally to clear their own land but later hired them out to work on other people's property.
Johnson specializes in small jobs, and these days she has around 120 goats, some of which she bought and some of which she took in from families who could no longer care for them.
The easement on 10th Avenue West belongs to the Seattle Department of Transportation, which suggested using goats, Pierce said. But financing for the goat-rental fees has been provided with a Neighborhood Matching Grant from the Department of Neighborhoods.
Pierce wasn't sure what the bill was going to be, but she said local residents are expected to cover half the cost of the project with sweat equity, which counts hours of labor as a monetary contribution toward the matching grant.
The neighbors have drawn up a schedule, and everybody is responsible for watering the goats and getting them untangled from the tethers they wear to prevent the critters from wandering off, Pierce said. "We all had to sign contracts," she added.
When asked about pooper-scooper duties, Pierce smiled ruefully. "That was one thing we overlooked," she admitted.
There are some benefits involved. "The goats are so friendly," said Pierce, who had just fed several of them raw carrots when she was interviewed for this story.
It was a treat the critters appreciated greatly, judging by the way they crowded around Pierce with hopeful expressions on their furry faces. "They're very sweet," Pierce said, adding that a couple of 6-month-old goats on the job are kind of learning the ropes.
Pierce said neighborhood residents plan to plant drought-tolerant species when the goats have finished their job, which clears the land down to the roots and dirt.
In the meantime, the animals have become a kind of tourist attraction. "Everyone started coming out of the woodwork to see the goats," she said.[[In-content Ad]]
