So how often do you get the chance to raise $1,235 for charity and make the lawyers back slowly away from you when you show up for jury duty?

Eleanor Cozart pulled it off Wednesday.

Cozart, a member of Tacoma Sunrise Rotary, showed up for the early a.m. meeting geared up to promote the club's annual auction, with its "Knights of the Rotarian Round Table" theme. She was wearing a midnight blue velvet gown with white satin accents in the Medieval style.

She gave her pep talk for the Oct. 4 auction at the Sharon McGavick Student Center and Conference Facility at Clover Park Technical College. She was ready to step down and duck out to change into her jury duty clothes.

That's when a rascally Rotarian called out that she should show up at the City-County building as Guinevere.

"Raise enough money, and I will," she shot back.

That's the thing about Rotarians. They're always plumbing their pockets to pay for their service projects. Sunrise's list includes housing for homeless moms and their children, scholarships, and programs at Lincoln High and Stewart Middle School.

$235 in dress-incentives came in from the floor, followed by $1,000.

That added up to "enough."

Superior Court Judge Rosanne Buckner, who's also a member of Sunrise Rotary, snapped a shot of Cozart waiting patiently in the jury pool with a good book.

Boonie wasn’t quite sure how to react. At first, he just looked at the plastic contraption attached to his leg. And when he wanted to walk away he limped off on three legs.

After all, it takes a while to adjust to a new prosthetic – especially if you’re a goat.

The 3-year-old, white-and-brown animal received a plastic device Wednesday that will substitute as his new hoof almost three months after it was amputated. But Boonie needed a bit of coaxing to use it.

“Come on Boonie,” his owner, Marna Peterson of Edgewood, told him. “It’s your new foot, Boonie!”

After a few minutes, he began walking gingerly on the device and resting against it. And that had Peterson, who owns five goats, beaming.

Boonie’s stump – the vets amputated just above his front right hoof – fits into a brace and is secured with Velcro. At the bottom of the device is a plastic semi-circle with rubber, tire-like tread.

His veterinarian, Dr. Krystal Grant of Tahoma Veterinary Hospital outside Spanaway, believes he is the third or fourth goat to receive a prosthetic leg.

A rope and a taste for blackberries led to the loss of Boonie’s leg on July 3.

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Visitors to Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium can drop by and check out some new arrivals: a litter of meerkats. (Meerkittens? No, they are called pups.)

Meerkat mom Amelia gave birth Sept. 6, but the four tiny youngsters have been in seclusion until recently, according to a zoo press release. No names yet. (They are so small that zookeepers can't tell their genders yet.)

“They become more and more adventurous every day,” said senior staff biologist Jennifer Donovan. “And they’re growing so quickly that frequent visitors notice their changes.”

The mob of meerkats has been a popular addition to the zoo's new Animal Avenue area since going on display over the summer. One of the 10 arrivals, Kingsley, died earlier this month.

Will Hirsh attended the public meetings. He talked to city and parks officials. He was certain he had secured a promise not to cut some century-old trees in Tacoma’s South Park.

But he awoke Wednesday to a scene he describes as shocking and deeply upsetting: the sight of Metro Parks Tacoma work crews cutting down three trees as part of the construction of the Water Ditch Trail.

“I saw them swarm in this morning, very early, with a huge crew and cut down the same trees that they promised me would be saved,” he said. “It’s irreversible damage. It’ll take 120 years to repair. It’s unbelievable.”

But Metro Parks’ arborist had signed off on the tree-cutting as part of a necessary renovation to accommodate the South Tacoma-to-downtown urban trail. And a city engineer with whom Hirsh had been speaking said their promise was more of a conversation that might have had both sides agreeing to different things.

“There was no written agreement,” said Michael Ahearn of the city’s Building and Land Use Division. “He called me and we talked. It was a little confusing on the phone talking about what trees we’re going to be removed. I tried to explain which ones would be removed. I think there was a gap in communication.”

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A National Geographic photographer is coming to Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium next weekend to tech kids photography.

Don't know if you're a Natty G fan like myself, but this would be a cool opportunity if you're 3-8 years old. Kids borrow a digital camera as Whidbey Island-based Kevin Horan teaches them how to shoot photos. The kids then practice on animals at the zoo.

Click below to read the press release and find ways to sign up.

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I’ve got a story about a court-watch program at the Northwest Detention Center in the works. And this afternoon, I’ll be dealing with a three-legged goat.