\u201cIt was two hours, and they got more done than I could have in a week.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stephanie Brander had a ravine full of vines she was never going to beat on her own. So she hired sheep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brander, who lives in Northern Virginia, first saw the flock working a July 4 parade in Fairfax City and booked them for her yard. When the trailer arrived, she kept her kids home from school to watch. \u201cIt was two hours, and they got more done than I could have in a week,\u201d she told NBC4 Washington. \u201cThat\u2019s pretty awesome. And they were fun to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sheep belong to Lamb Mowers, a licensed Fairfax County landscaping business run by Cory Suter, whose customers call him Shepherd Cory. The flock is made up of Babydoll Southdowns, an heirloom breed that tops out around knee height and looks, accurately, like a walking teddy bear. \u201cThese sheep are an heirloom breed that is people-friendly and easy to control,\u201d Suter said. \u201cSo, for a suburban environment, they are ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The business started by accident. Suter brought his first three Babydolls up from Illinois in his wife\u2019s Prius in 2016, a trip he says the car never fully recovered from, and put them to work clearing poison ivy, wisteria, and multiflora rose around his farm south of Fairfax. They were good enough at it that he started renting them out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A two-hour session starts at $195 on weekdays, $295 on weekends, and brings anywhere from three to fifteen sheep. They eat what most homeowners pay chemicals to kill: poison ivy, kudzu, knotweed, Japanese honeysuckle, the stuff in the corners of the yard nobody wants to deal with. What comes out the other end is fertilizer, which Suter notes improves the soil\u2019s water-holding capacity. Suter handles anything the sheep can\u2019t reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are conditions. He won\u2019t bring the flock to a yard treated with pesticides in the past six months. He\u2019d rather you didn\u2019t mow first. And it helps if you actually have a weed problem, because the sheep are there to eat. If a sheep doesn\u2019t want to get in the trailer, that\u2019s the end of it. \u201cI never force them to come,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The flock has names, assigned by Suter\u2019s two young sons, which is how a working animal ends up being called Monster Truck. There\u2019s also Elf, Sunny, and Clover. The matriarch is Cinnamon, seven years old and over 130 pounds. On properties larger than two acres, county rules let the sheep stay the night, a job Suter calls a sheepover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They also do parties. Preschools, community groups, Girl Scout events, birthdays, jobs where the weeds are secondary to the fact that fifteen small sheep have arrived. \u201cWe bring joy everywhere we go,\u201d Suter said. \u201cOur sheep are just really friendly, sweet animals that like to say hi to people and are just kind of lower your blood pressure when you get to be near them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Margaret Bain, whose church in Vienna hired the flock to clear land, put the competitive advantage plainly. \u201cWe could have hired laborers,\u201d she said, \u201cbut the sheep were more cute than anybody we could have brought.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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