By Ruth SOWBY

During the first part of the week of July 7 through July 10, guests at Descanso Gardens in La Cañada were surprised to see about 40 goats grazing on grass, tree limbs and dried vegetation along the road to the Boddy House. The goats were tasked with clearing brush and invasive plants near the Stone Bridge. So that the goats wouldn’t wander away while guests watched them eat their breakfast, they (the goats, not the guests) were surrounded by an electric fence. Party Goats LA owner Scout Raskin provided the hooved animals, warning that the goats could tolerate the electric fence better than humans. So “no touching.”

Also, according to Raskin, the goats will also eat poison oak. Not only doesn’t it hurt them, “they love it,” she said. 

However, the poison oak-eating goats were kept from a petting zoo set up on the main lawn on Saturday, July 11. So that no poison oak could rub off on petting zoo guests, different goats were used and not the grazing animals. Sheep, however, joined the goats at the petting zoo. Sheep, evidently, are champion grass eaters.    

The kids appeared to cozy up to the sheep a lot more than they did the goats.  

“Ba-a-a. Ba-a-a,” went the kids. Or maybe that was a sheep …