Monday, May 11, 2009

Cutting the grass, mower or less

It's Spring, when a man's or woman's thoughts usually turn to...mowing the lawn. After a long winter's nap buried snugly under a blanket of white, nature compels grass to do what grass usually does. Grow it does and then some.

Came accross an interesting piece in a news article.

Here's something for people who kvetch about how fast their lawns grow and how difficult it is to keep up with cutting them/it/the grass.

Seems that the British are now adopting - wait for it - wallabies as pets to trim their lawns. A wallabie according to Wikipedia, is "any of about thirty species of macropod (Family Macropodidae). It is an informal designation generally used for any macropod that is smaller than a kangaroo or wallaroo that has not been given some other name."

Now you know but let's get back to this new craze that could be sweeping England.

According to the article that I found, wallabies don't come cheap at a cost of £150 for males and £650 for females. Notice that the females are considerably more expensive than the male wallabies whatever that means.

Let's say...people (in this case Brits, but their popularity could spread) really take to wallabies and slowly they replace sheep. Slowly, sheep will lose their place as the official grass nibblers of the hills, replaced by the interloping Australian marsupials. A time could arrive down the line when sheep will have to fight for a piece of land, just like the days in the old west. There will be public appearances on talk shows like Oprah and Ellen with their human spokes-people showing un-sheared sheep suffering from over-wooliness syndrome. Facebook campaigns to save-the-sheep will emerge. The craze could spread accross the ocean at our doorsteps and it won't be long before wallabies will become a public fixture on weekends cutting North American lawns.

"See you got a new lawnmower," a neighbor will say to another, setting up the scene. "Nice model. I got a new one too."

At which point the neighbor-Mr. wallabie-owner will lead out his new living model mower while the other neighbor watches in stunned silence.

It's a possibility!

Somewhere down the line there will probably be a public outcry with animal rights protesters decrying the use of wallabies for human usage as barbaric and detrimental to the wallabie's health. At that point wallabies will lose their appeal and sheep will retain their former glory.

By the way anyone looking to keep a wallaby should have enough land for them to roam, at leat a half an acre with fences at least 5ft high to ensure they can't jump for freedom.

I mean, really. What next? Trained angel fish? For the record I tried training my angel fish without any success. Stubborn breed I'm told.