Sometimes there’s a news story that actually makes you LOL

There’s so much lousy news out there, it’s great to see an article on something that is just fantastically splendid. That is, unless you live in Boise, Idaho and found your house surrounded by goats eating every bit of flora that surrounds your house. But for those of us, safe and secure thousands of miles away, contently living in a goat-free zone. Well, stories don’t get much better.

What happened was that, early last Friday morning, more than a hundred goats got loose. These are working goats that are used to, well, working, getting rid of unwanted vegetation. Unfortunately, goats can’t distinguish between unwanted vegetation and things like front lawns, bushes and flower beds.

For Joe Parris, who typically covers politics and breaking events for a local TV station, getting to cover this story was a nice change of pace from focusing on the wildfires that have been plaguing the area. He got to have some fun live tweeting the sitch:

About 100 goats are on the loose right now in a Boise neighborhood. They are going house to house eating everything in sight. Nobody has a clue where they came from...updates to follow (Source: NY Times)

Within an hour or so after they were spotted, everyone did have a clue about where the goats had come from: a company wonderfully named WeRentGoats. Anyway, the company’s goat wranglers swung by with their trucks and rounded them up. Git along little goatie! (No time to understand ‘em, just push, prod, and land them in the goat carrier.) But not before they’d done a bit of damage:

The goat-renting company has insurance “and will be following up with neighbors whose landscaping was damaged,” said Haley Williams, a spokeswoman for the Boise Police Department.

There are, of course, some things that likely won’t be compensated for. Like goat poop all over the place

Mr. Parris said in an interview that the goats were friendly, and that he got to pet one. They weren’t very noisy, aside from the chewing. The smell, he said, was awful.

Despite the chewing, the goat poop, the smell, the neighbors took Goat-a-Palooza (Parris’ coinage) in stride:

…they seemed to be in a good mood about it. Children jumped up and down in excitement.

“You would assume the homeowners were upset that their lawns were being destroyed, but everyone was enjoying it,” Mr. Parris said. “Everyone was really happy about it.”

This isn’t surprising at all. Goats are pretty darned cute. And there must have been something magical to find your neighborhood being invaded by goats. The closest I’ve come is seeing that javelinas rampaging around in Tucson. I’m sure it’s a complete pain in the ass if they’re tipping over your garbage cans every night, but to look out the window and see a javelina family strutting their stuff. Well, for those of us accustomed to rats and pigeons, it was quite wonderful.

As for WeRentGoats, I’ve long longed to work on a product or for a company that’s easy to explain. WeRentGoats is right up there with my previous fave – We Clean Blinds.

We Rent Goats® does just what our name says. We rent herds of goats to remove noxious weeds from fields, acreage, pastures, open spaces, ditches, ravines, embankments… you name it and the goats can clear it.Our goal is to help you restore and protect your property—whether that means getting rid of non-native weeds that are ruining your acreage, or creating fire barriers around your home, ranch, outbuildings, or housing development. We even clear land around golf courses (and find a heck of a lot of golf balls in the process!).

Goats are superior to the alternatives. They’re better for the environment than chemical sprays. Bulldozing – imagine having enough weeds that you’d need a bulldozer! – requires a human to operate the bulldozer. Plus they don’t work so well on steep banks.

And apparently,

You can graze cows and sheep. But these animals don’t like most weeds. And even if they do eat them, they can’t digest most seeds.

Well, I wouldn’t have thought that cows and/or sheep would have been a weed-control option. But what do I know from cows, sheep or goats? Most of what I know about goats I learned from this story. That and I also know that they do yoga.

Anyway, after a completely relentless run of bad news on the local, national, and international fronts, it was just plain fun to read about the Goats of Boise.

And good luck to WeRentGoats. They’re going to have some explaining to do to clients and their insurance provider about how those little guys got loose to begin with.