It all began one day when I found myself looking for a cheap place to live with enough room for my two girls.
Newly divorced and looking to save money, I soon found myself thinking about moving into the house next to my mom's place (the house I grew up in) which had been abounded for about 3 years now. The previous owners had passed away and we had known them since before I was born. They were a interesting couple or roommates I never really knew what their title was.
There was Katie the big round German woman
(not the real Katie)
who would always come over in the summer time and ask either me or my brother to put sunscreen on your fat back or one time asking my brother and I and the local neighborhood kids if we knew how to cook her steak. We still say to this day "can you cook my steak?" in her Germany accented voice whenever we wanted to have a good laugh.
Then there was Chino
(again not the real Icky)
or what I nick named him "icky" I guess I did it when I was a small human and can't remember but that's what we called him. He didn't seem to mind. He was a short little Guamanian man who loved to bring home junk that people would throw out from the apartment complex that he worked at as one of the grounds keepers. some about them later in another post, this post is about goats remember?
So anyways after many many happy years of living next to them and knowing them like family and after me and my brother grew up and moved out and started our own lives the day came, we were told by my mom that Chino had passed away. It was a sad day for everyone and his family came to take care of his belongings and hold the service.
They were here for about a week and when they left they told my mom that they would like us to keep an eye on the house and gave her the key and they flew back to Guam. Now this wasn't a remodeled fresh house it was never remodeled and looked like something that you'd see on Hoarders. Stuff everywhere remember he loved to bring home things from work that others threw out and she love QVC so you can imagine.
One picture of what the back patio looked like so you can imagine what the rest looked like. The garage was still packed to the ceiling with crap! Not much of it was worth keeping.
We gutted the inside of the house and I started to tear everything apart so I could see what I had to work with and what needed fixing.
The bathroom pretty much was rotted out.
I'll save all that for another time.
So after many trips to the dump I finally got almost everything out of the backyard that I could. So I had no idea how I was going to tackle the blackberry bushes and the grass that was up to my hip in the backyard, until goats! Yep I rented some goats from a local goat rental service. Now I had seen goats helping clean up overgrown areas in areas of my city and in Portland but I never thought the day would come that I would actually make use of such a service. So after a Google search a phone call and about $250 dollars later, up drove a white van with my rent a goats.
He brought me two full grown goats and a few kids I think three of them. He let them out and they got right to work munching away. They were in heaven. Mr. goat said "give me a call when they are done eating everything they can", and said "you'll know when they are done because they will get loud." I said "okay sounds good" and away he drove. I got to keep them till the job was done, what a killer deal if you ask me!
Okay I'll have to continue this in a part two. This should get you started on my squatting adventure and what it's like renting and working along side goats to clean up a very overgrown abounded backyard. what the hell did I get myself into???
To be continued...