On a recent Thursday afternoon, the landscaping crew at Old Mill Park was mostly asleep on the job.
As a couple of the workers milled dutifully around the underbrush abutting Caroline Street, the rest lazed in the sun, horns nuzzled in a mid-day fiesta.
But don’t let it get your goat.
The seven furry friends have made visible progress clearing undesired vegetation as part of an eco-friendly partnership between the City of Fredericksburg and The Good Steward Farm in Stafford County.
“I’m kind of doing two things at once,” Shawn Phillips said as he answered a call from a reporter. Besides the phone interview, Phillips was milking a goat on the farm he owns with his wife, Carly Brown.
Phillips and Brown, the former owners of Spencer Devon Brewing in downtown Fredericksburg, started their goat landscaping business a little over a year ago and have since expanded their herd to 18.
This past winter, he approached the city to gauge interest, and the two parties eventually agreed to a 60-day trial run from April through May.
In an email, Parks and Recreations Superintendent of Special Projects Aaron Simmons wrote that feedback from the public has been “overwhelmingly positive,” and that the trial run could lead to future collaborations.
“We are hoping to identify other areas in the City where the goats can be utilized in the future,” Simmons wrote.
Phillips said he checks on his wards up to twice a day, bringing fresh water. One thing they don’t need during their extended park visit: outside sustenance.
“Long-stem forage is all they really need, as long as it’s not a monoculture (single crop),” Phillips explained.
An electric fence around the perimeter of the work area keeps the goats in and the predators out, and Phillips installed a couple of cameras to monitor their labors remotely. A sign posted nearby cautions members of the public not to feed the work crew as it could “interfere with their work and negatively impact their health.”
Goat landscaping, Simmons added, isn’t a new concept in the parks and recreation world; it not only reduces the use of pesticides but also eliminates the need for mechanical methods like mowing.
“We just let nature do what it does,” Phillips said.
