Oct. 5, 2017 – A black goat named Eyebrows and his sand-colored pals, Lily Belle and Swiss Cheese, lay sunbathing atop their wooden lean-to at the highest point of Prospect Park. Their job was done, their time in Brooklyn coming to an end.
Having eaten much more than their weight in poison ivy and invasive species from the steep slopes of the park, the goats would soon be headed back to their farm upstate in Rhinebeck. Before the goats left in mid September, park workers enjoyed a group hug with them at Lookout Hill, their latest dining spot.
But there was so much more work to be done. Now it was time for the humans to get busy.
Across the park, at a woodland area called the Vale of Cashmere, a 26-foot-long truck had just parked. For two hours, a dozen soil-dusted, sweaty men and women from the Prospect Park Alliance formed a human chain that stretched down a small hill, passing tulip trees, elderberry plants, American holly and other potted native flora hand to hand to hand to hand. The plantings, when added to two other deliveries, would make up the new landscape on the sloped spot prepared by the goats earlier in summer.
