Last month in the Triad, a local artist set out to trim lawns and raise environmental awareness with the help of two four-legged assistants.
Activist, artist and filmmaker Joel Tauber calls the Buena Vista neighborhood in Winston-Salem home. He says after giving considerable thought to the chemical and noise pollution caused by manicured lawns and gas-powered mowers, he decided to take action.
He adopted two sheep, Sarah and Rebecca, and set out to provide his neighbors with an alternative. During a 40-day experiment, the sheep grazed in 30 different yards, keeping the grass maintained.
The trick, he says, was that the yards had to be chemical-free.
"People wanted to open their yards, but then they couldn't when they realized they had chemicals," says Tauber. "It became a kind of way to think about our relationships to nature here, and I feel good about that. I think there were a lot of conversations that happened."
Now, Tauber is turning his experience into a movie and art installation called Seeking Pasture.