Sheep grazing at NYC church cemetery keep grounds tidy

A sheep looks over a wall in the cemetery at the Basilica of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in New York City Aug. 9. The parish uses three grazing sheep to cut the graveyard's grass this summer. (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz)

by Gregory A. Shemitz Catholic News Service | Aug. 16, 2016

NEW YORK They're baaaaaaaaaa-ck!

For the third straight year, a historic New York City church has imported three sheep from an upstate New York farm to serve as organic lawn mowers in its two-century-old cemetery.

The woolly visitors graze on grass and weeds growing in between and around the weather-eroded headstones and obelisks in the north graveyard of the Basilica of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, a structure dedicated in 1815 and located in the Lower Manhattan neighborhood of Nolita, for "North of Little Italy."

The sheep arrived Aug. 7 following an 85-mile ride in a pickup truck from a fiber farm in New Paltz, where the owner breeds Cormo Sheep exclusively for the high-quality fleece sought by knitters.

https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/eco-catholic/sheep-grazing-nyc-church-cemetery-keep-grounds-tidy