When we moved to Cottage Grove, Oregon, our daughter, Ariel, was two years old. Our family's favorite past time was driving up Interstate 5, four miles north of Cottage Grove looking east up the steep hillside for "the quarry goats" and excitedly counting them. Then driving home, we'd repeat the count.
Thirty years later, Ariel is teaching her children the "family tradition".
Apparently, we were not the only family that the goats are important to! Friends Maryann and Leo said, "Our family and now our grandchildren count the freeway goats. We consider them good luck charms affirming that we will have a good trip." Carla added, "Everyone I know instinctively ‘counts those goats'."
Tina Fornoff owns and operates a dump truck and has been
hauling rock for the busy Sears Pit that the goats have called home for 15 years.
The rock quarry's first goat, Billy, showed up out of the blue in 1985. Neither Billy nor any of the subsequent goats are mountain goats. The ones you see today are Alpines. Someone who understood that goats are herd animals brought him a bride, Nanny. Billy lived to be 25 years old and died in 2007 and Nanny in 2008.
Over the years, for those on "goat watch"
you will have noticed different sizes and colors. Four of the original donated goats have passed from old age or were killed by cougars, but amazingly none have been injured by traffic. For their safety, cameras and a watchman monitor their property.
Today, tourists and locals count seven goats on the rocky hillside surrounding the pit. They were originally named according to their birth location: Dozer, Black Betty, 3Quarter, Aggie, Drillbit, Nitro, and Landslide.
When a new kid was born the drivers and crew put names into a hard hat and drew a winner.
The last twins were named after 728 people (employees, town's folks, and I-5 truck drivers) responded to Facebook's What's Going On in Cottage Grove with 428 different name suggestions (300 names were duplicates). Several fun suggestions: Boulder, Pebbles, Bam-Bam, Rocky, Driver, Trucky, Cliff, Hill-ary, Stoner and Dusty.
In 2017, Tina put out an internet
goat questionnaire and received 512 responses from tourists!
Wanda in Nevada wrote, "My family and friends and I love those goats and we make them part of the tourist sites when visiting!" Maraca in Arizona said, "These goats are a cherished part of the community."
Have you ever been to a rock quarry? The noise of crushing rock, trucks, and machinery is deafening! What on earth do the goats think of all that noise and how do they interact with
the crew and noise?
"All our current goats were born here. They do not mind the noise because they are used to it," explains Tina. "Like any skilled construction worker, with safety on their minds, they know when to walk around us and stay away. My truck weighs 48,000 pounds, and they keep out of my way."
‘Billy' our original goat was a clown. He rode in the cab of Lance's D8K bulldozer's pushing rock to the feeder/crusher. Billy also
walked into the crusher's cab and stole the operator's lunch box. He had a hobby of begging and standing on our dump truck's steps. Even though he had access to a hillside of vegetation, pasture grass, and goat feed, he still preferred drivers sandwiches, garden veggies, apples, and the pears they brought him.
Billy was the best goat ever. I still tear up thinking of him, then I laugh remembering when the crew was busy doing equipment maintenance and he'd steal
their tools, grease guns, towels, and one time a hard hat!"
