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Uploaded: Tuesday, October 20, 2009, 12:33 PM Updated: Wednesday, October 21, 2009, 11:42 AM
Goat Hill: Farm operations must end Thursday
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by Dave Boyce
Almanac Staff
Photo
 | The goats, chickens, geese and large black llama that grace the pasture at the corner at Hacienda Drive and Woodside Road in Woodside will soon be gone.
The property, including the house hidden behind the trees above the pasture, has been sold and farm operations are likely to end by Thursday, Oct. 22, said the animals' owner Lisa Green, a Redwood City massage therapist.
Ms. Green has used the pasture free of charge for about three years, courtesy of Woodside residents and property owners Scott and Mimi Cacchione. In its own way, the pasture has been a working farm, with Ms. Green selling eggs and goat's milk and opening the gates selectively to visitors seeking experience with real farm animals.
She will open up elsewhere, she said, possibly in Woodside, possibly in Pescadero, but visitors won't be allowed in. To move the animals, she will borrow a horse trailer. "They'll miss their friends," she said. "They'll be bored."
The property had been in foreclosure and bank officials were said to have had "no interest" in talking with her, she said she was told by a real estate agent.
For $3.2 million and a rezoning of the property, it might have been hers to start a nonprofit, but fundraising efforts did not do well. "We have had enormous verbal buy-in. I've been handed hundreds of business cards," she said. "We have had absolutely no concrete buy-in."
She said she would bring the animals back if somehow the property were to be once again available, but, she added, that would require the residents of Woodside "to get behind this in a concrete way."
Encouragement has come from at least one member of the Town Council, she said.
Asked about what might be a daunting effort to have the place rezoned, should she find the money or cooperative owners, Ms. Green replied: "You've got to hope and you've got to dream or nothing happens. Mountains are moved every day."
A deputy from the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office had suggested contacting the Ronald McDonald house, which she has done, but she hasn't heard back from them, she said.
For updates, Ms. Green asks that you join the Facebook group "Goat Hill Coalition."
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