LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — If you had some guests who came in and just ate, did their business, slept and then left, you probably wouldn’t be very happy. But some Lexington visitors this month are being celebrated for doing just that.
“Everything they’re doing, eating, lying down and digesting, pooping…that’s all considered work,” says Paula Singer.
She’s the project manager of the Goat Project at Vaughn’s Branch at Oxford Circle, which has been in the works for years and is now finally on the ground. Three times a year – this is visit number two, this “magnificent seven” drops in for a two-week buffet, eating poison ivy and other problem growth in the hopes of turning a local creekbed in the Cardinal Valley neighborhood into a greenspace.
“They should have completed their work by then,” says Singer. “What we would like to do is to engage again with the community, plant native plants, native shrubs, native trees in this area which should be cleared by then, which would be open to the sunshine, which would allow the seeds to take hold and grow.”
David Neville of Capstone Farms says this has become a cottage industry. He owns 50 goats but has access to 1,000 – all really to devour whatever needs to be eaten. “People say, ‘How many goats you need? How long you leavin’ ‘em there?’ And those sorts of questions and all joking aside, I let the goats tell me. I know my goats and they’re gonna say, ‘Hey dude, we gotta have something to eat here. Come on! Come get us!’” jokes Neville.
Teresa Rakes – herself a “Hero Among Us’ – is one of the volunteers.
“Volunteers come out every day — morning, noon and evening and we count the goats. We count and make sure that all seven goats are accounted for and that nothing’s wrong," says Rakes.
“It’s teaching the community why we’re doing this…some people didn’t know there was a stream there," adds Singer, who has high hopes for the project, which is being paid for by a grant and which could go on as long as these heroes have an appetite.
“I’d like to do it section by section, all the way up to Prestons Cave and McConnell Springs.”
