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If today's FFGN news doesn't make you smile, I don't know what will.
In a small town in Ohio, a young entrepreneur has been making money the old-fashioned way. The really, really old, old-fashioned way: he used sheep to keep his clients' lawns short. That's right, this summer he rented out two Jacob sheep (a heritage breed, I'll have you know) for $1 per sheep per day to eat up the grass and weeds, and miraculously the ovines didn't touch the flowers or other decorative plants! It may have taken them up to a few days to finish their grazing, but in the mean time the homeowners kicked back and relaxed, and pollution-emitting gas mowers did no harm.
Eddie Miller, founder (and shepherd) of Heritage Lawn Mowing, is only 23 years old. He turned to entrepreneurship when no job opportunities presented themselves after he graduated from university last year. Though he had to supplement his income by working on a local farm, he was happy to accept barter payments for the lawn mowing and kept his prices low, driven by a desire to make the service accessible to all. Mostly, he seemed to like the rewarding work and rural way of life, though he does have dreams of scaling up his business in future years to take on bigger projects, with the long-term goal of running an organic farm company.
I, for one, am equally impressed and amused by this venture and hope to see some sheep mowers in my neck of the woods some time soon. To read more on this story and find out about other non-traditional agricultural start-ups, check out this article.
Photo of Jacob sheep used under Creative Commons from Lynn Gardner (flickr).
