Sheep, Cows, and Geese; Choosing the Right Mower For You!May 29 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line In this day and age of John Deeres, and Toros. It's refreshing that one can still rely on the lowly sheep, cow, and the occasional hippie to do the job.
Sheep, cows, horses, and hippies, they all have their plus and minuses when it comes to choosing one to take care of your lawn. Which is the right one for you? The benefits of owning an organic mower is they are environmentally friendly and sometimes provide other benefits such as wool and milk. The downside is the cost involved in ownership. You have to look after their health and keep them happy, and you cannot use chemicals and fertilizers to improve your lawn lest you sicken the animals. Sheep Ah, sheep, those lovable, fluffy clouds floating over a hillside. They bleat, and are docile creatures. They also provide wool for clothing, and milk for specialized cheeses. Sheep are very efficient grazers, and will eat not only grass, but also weeds and short stubby plants giving you more bang for the buck. Park lawns all over the world used to be manicured by sheep. In the case of Sheep’s Meadow in NYC’s Central Park, sheep could still be seen up until the time of the Great Depression, when they had to be relocated less they turn into lamb chops by hungry folk. There is little downside to using sheep besides looking after their health, and worrying about sheep poop. If you have a tiny lawn, and a few sheep, the last thing you want is to relax on your lawn and find yourself in sheep poop. Cows Cows are fun, they eat grass, and provide milk. At night, you can tip them over just for kicks. And their personality! Who cannot love their grass eating grin while they are chewing cud, crud? Unfortunately, cows are big, and they eat up a lot of grass. A small lawn just won’t handle even a single cow. If you do have one as a lawn mower, you might end up buying hay and straw just to feed her, and that can get downright expensive. Then there are the cow pies; when your lawn gets too much of these, the cows will refuse to graze altogether. But you can get rid of them by tossing them as far as you can into your neighbor’s yard – I’m talking about cow chips, what were you thinking? The biggest downside by far is that cows are somewhat environmentally unfriendly. They are a big contributor to the worldwide greenhouse effect by their production of methane in their stomachs. And then there is that little technical problem of spontaneous combustion and exploding cows. If that happens, your lawn can get pretty messy. Make sure the cow warrantee covers spontaneous combustion. Swans In the lake in NYC’s Central Park, there is a resident pair of mute swans. Cute couple, hates dogs, hangs around in the winter because the park is basically rent-free; they are your typical New Yorkers. This year they had 7 cygnets but already lost two (one to a dog or a raccoon, and the other to a gigantic snapping turtle). Swans usually eat lots of underwater greens, as well as tender grass. I was wondering, would swans be effective lawn mowers? So I did a quick test. I saw some people do it, so I tried it myself; I fed them some grass. These swans in Central Park really are a docile pair when they feel like it and will sometimes swim over in curiosity. It’s not easy, it’s a big lake, and one has to be patient. When they did swim over, I dropped some freshly plucked grass into the water. Now at first the adult swans aren’t that appreciative that you are feeding them grass. They would taste it, and probably eat a little, but would just reject it all together. After all, they eat this stuff all day and more likely than not, have acquired a taste for noshing on saltines and other types of junk people feed them. The cygnets, however, couldn’t be happier. They snapped up those greens like California hippies at a wheat grass/latte extravaganza. Judging by the cool reception, I would say that having swans to cut your lawn just wouldn’t cut it. You’ll have some mean and cranky swans to boot. Geese Geese are like ducks. Fat and plump, tasty when roasted, but I digress. Geese like nice grassy areas that they forage and play in. So why not get a few together to mow your lawn? Well, it’s like signing a pact with the devil. Once you get a few, they always seem to attract more, and they don’t do a good job at eating the grass. These fiends will quickly become your worse nightmare much like a relative who overstays their welcome. There are some towns and villages who have tried all sorts of methods to get rid of geese, like this one place in NJ who shot them up and served them to the homeless (no joke!); but the geese always came back unperturbed. Efficiency-wise, geese are probably not that great when it comes to mowing lawns. Like how much grass can a goose conceivably eat? Then there is the goose poop they leave behind. It resembles dog poop, but much greasier and black, you wouldn’t want it on your lawns. California Hippies Recently I saw on a menu a glass of wheat juice costing $2.50. I was thinking, Wow! Although I never tasted wheat juice before, how can it be any dissimilar to juice from grass clippings pureed in my Braun juicer. I was thinking, the only people who drink this stuff are California hippies. These communist, I mean commune-loving pacifists are into environmental ecology peace love and all that. If I offered my product for free, I believed that they would just “Dig it man!” Wrong! Apparently some hippies have a penchant for a different type of grass, an evil weedy looking shrubbery that has nothing to do with the innocent looking stuff. And those that do drink wheat grass juice seem to want only the real thing. My grass just didn’t cut it. I did not have “wheat grass”, a more expensive variety. Hippies certainly are not recommended as lawn mowers. Besides not having the right grass variety for them to cut, there is the real problem of people lying around on your front lawn smoking pot all day. Bottom Line Choosing the right mower for one’s lawn is a difficult decision. For efficient cutting, a power mower will do just fine. For organic, environmentally friendly cutting that requires not too much effort on the part of the owner, sheep can work as well. Notes The swans are a true story. One cygnet died when a turtle snatched it underwater and drowned it. I missed that event by mere minutes. If you find this review less than very helpful, I don’t blame you.  |
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