Ten days ago, during a brief lull between rain storms, I was able to get out and do some gardening.  We live in the San Francisco Bay Area, in Northern California.

I usually write about FHA and Conventional Mortgage Loan, and Real Estate in California, but it has been a very STRESSFUL week due to numerous new disclosure rules for borrowers.   My husband, a creative High School Science Teacher, is always looking for ways to cut down on time spent on the more boring aspects of maintaining our rather large yard.

In July of 2008, after planting about 200 grapevines, which is the beginning of our family vineyard, we adopted two adult Pygmy Goats from someone reducing their herd.   

Big Mac is quite handsome & Ellie Mae is very gentle and sweet tempered. 

Two quickly became six, when Ellie gave birth to four babies, two males and two females. 

They were barely two pounds at birth and finally our ferocious guard dog Peanut was not the tiniest animal in our household.  Weighing in at 10lbs, Peanut was 5 times their size – but not for long.

But, I digress – back to the automated weed whackers.  In the past, we have had to hire someone in the Spring to disc the yard – otherwise the weeds will get as high as three feet.    This year, we are thrilled that our small  herd of goats are doing a bang up job of eliminating almost all of the weeds.

See them in action as they head out to the vineyard:

Our Goat Maintained Yard

The only thing they won’t eat is a very wicked weed in the thistle family -  which you can see is the only weed they left behind.

Our neighbors yard – weeds already 18 to 24 inches high!