urban grazing

 

Before engines were attached to lawn mowers, large tracts of grassland that was not hayed were mown by grazing sheep. The English removed Scots (and Englishmen) from landed estates and replaced them with sheep. This clearing of people was the antecedent to the suburban lawn. When the Monkees sang about "the weekend squire, who just came out to mow his lawn" in Pleasant Valley Sunday's "status symbol land", they were more correct than people knew. Well to-day there is an environmental, and back to nature ethos in a small contingent of people. Here in Cleveland, last year and this, there is Urban Shepherds. Some of Cleveland's city lots are being manicured the XIXth century way.

 On Lake Erie's shore next to the freeway, east of Quay 55 young Dorset sheep graze.

No this is not a tall sheep, this is the guardian llama; unlike a sheep dog, llamas share the same diet.

And the sheep don't mind carrying a bird.