When we first bought our house the "backyard" was a complete eyesore, replete with a tar-roofed carport next to a plot of head-high blackberry bushes held back by a sagging chain-link fence. We joked about renting goats to clear the whole thing, but in the end resorted to a backhoe. (And this past weekend, a mere 3 1/2 years after we moved in, we finally have a backyard, huzzah!). Apparently, we're not the only one who had that goat idea: Just 4 blocks down from our house, construction company Saltaire hired "Rent-A-Ruminant" to graze an entire quarter acre in just 48 hours. We wandered down the street and lo and behold, there were 60 goats (we could only see about 15 at a time, the rest were wandering up inside the blackberry bushes) munching away like a, well, 60-goat wrecking crew. We were joined by many neighbors, all of us slightly shaking our heads and laughing, just marveling at the sight of a pack of goats on a steep sidehill just steps away from an insanely busy intersection at Dearborn and Rainier. Slowly more and more kids arrived, squealing and pointing and petting (note to neighborhood associations: if you want to have a packed and lively block party, rent some goats).

And then, I saw Doug. And I fell in love. Honestly, how could you not, with these ears:

Doug is just six weeks old, the newest member of this full-time land-clearing herd. A local woman owns 90 of them and rents them out for just this purpose. Earlier today they were out in Duvall laying waste to well over an acre. Just one more day, and they'll be gone, leaving behind a tangle of bare, leafless blackberry bushes so the construction company can figure out how to get their machinery up the incredibly steep slope of their site. And our street will return to normal, but for now its a carnival, a street fair, and block party all courtesy of a few goats who introduced us to even more of our neighbors.

You can see the full goaty set on Flickr.

UPDATE: It appears that KOMO actually came out to see the goats. Oh, and they made a "kid" joke, how quaint. Now we can add to the list of things which will bring the newsmedia to our neighborhood for a story: shootings and goats.