Arlington employed a herd of goats this fall to clear invasive plants on a Select Board-owned lot and make way for a “secret garden” envisioned by the community.
Halé Sofia Schatz, goatherder for Goodwin Hill Goat Farm in Lexington, and her herd traveled to Arlington for the past four weeks to graze the half-acre plot of land at 21 Pond Lane near Spy Pond.
Adorned with belled collars and little leashes, the goats trotted around the property and munched on the foliage on Thursday.
The Goodwin Hill goats are Nigerian Dwarfs, which are about half the size of typical goats. They can begin foraging at as young as 5 weeks old, but Schatz brings an extra bag to carry the little ones — in case they get tired.
“It’s a long walk for little legs like that,” Schatz said.
She loads 10 goats into her Volvo wagon to travel to grazing spots. Each one stands during the journey except for the grandmother goat, who has her own blanket to lie on.
Goats are nomadic foragers, Schatz said, so they are perfectly suited for clearing 21 Pond Lane.
“They go … all over the world, and they’re able to sustain their sense of feeding themselves, even though there’s weather patterns and geographic situations that they’re continually challenged with,” Schatz said. “They’re very strong animals.”
Arlington recycling coordinator Laura Olivier connected Schatz with former town environmental planner David Morgan over the summer to begin the preliminary stages of the clearing project. Invasive species cannot be thrown out with yard waste, Olivier said. They must be thrown away with particular labeling, or eaten away.
“[The environmental planner] mentioned, ‘Oh, it’d be so nice to have goats,’ and then I just made this connection to my brain, so I connected the two of them,” Olivier said.
This is not an unusual activity for the goats. Schatz takes her herd to graze a new area every day.
There are risks for the goats when they graze on a small property like 21 Pond Lane, particularly in the presence of dogs. “Hunting animals, especially, really go berserko,” Schatz said. “It can be dangerous for everybody because they can pull the leashes of the owner, or if a teenager has a leash and is not really aware of it, it could be dangerous in those situations.”
Schatz said people don’t understand how goats function. They are trained for activities that can be harmful for both the goats and humans.
“We don’t know what goats do, so we put them in petting zoos and think they’re awful cute and give them corn,” Schatz said. “That is not what goats do.”
Schatz said her goats are not meant to clear up the whole space — they’re just phase one.
The lot at 21 Pond Lane, which is under the jurisdiction of the Select Board, has been neglected for years. Residents walk through the area as a shortcut, but the area has become overgrown and infested with invasive plants.
The town hired Ben Barkan, the owner of Home Harvest, a landscape and construction company, last year as a consultant to create a feasibility report on how to move forward with the land. Arlington set a budget of $15,000 from Community Preservation Act funding to assess the area.
Barkan spoke with residents and heard clear interest in an “ecologically beneficial oasis” park. Residents described a lush garden resembling a magical secret garden with a path to take you around the space.
“A lot of people were very against any sort of concrete or significant built element,” Barkan said. “Most people were pretty receptive to gardens and flowers and beautifying the space in an earth-conscious manner.”
Barkan said he approved of having goats clear the land, but he emphasized it is a temporary solution.
“I think a lot of the weeds that are there are not going to be killed permanently by goat intervention,” Barkan said. “But ultimately they need to really make a large investment to clear out the invasive plants and then plant literally thousands of new plants to create the kind of dream that I came up with with the community.”
Barkan said there is no guarantee the town will accept his suggested garden design in his 100-page report.
“The report I put together is a direct reflection of what the neighbors and abutters and what the community actually wants in that space,” Barkan said. “So I just hope it gets built.”
All photographs are by Samantha Mandala.
This story was first published by YourArlington in partnership with the Boston University Department of Journalism’s Newsroom Initiative.