For the Sheep of Governors Island, a Final New York Summer
Good morning. It's Thursday. Today we'll meet the summer landscaping squad on Governors Island. We'll also get details on the mixed verdict in the retrial of the former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
On Governors Island, the 172-acre former fort in New York Harbor, the return of the summer landscaping squad was as predictable as the return of the swallows to San Juan Capistrano in California.
The landscaping squad is five sheep. They will spend their days eating plants that sound unappetizing — mugworts, phragmites and bromes. The sheep like them, and gobble them up faster than people working the same acreage could clear them, according to Melissa Perrin, who as the gardener on Governors Island is the de facto sheep herder. The plants in question are invasive species that can cause irreversible problems.
This is the fifth year that the sheep — Bowie, Chad, Evening, Jupiter and Philip Aries — have spent the summer on Governors Island, and it will be their last. Their services will no longer be needed after September. They may even be sent home, to the farm near Albany where they spend the rest of the year, sooner.
They will leave with gold stars as well as pink slips. They have done what they were brought in to do and have done it well, said Nicole Fogarty, the director of marketing for Governors Island.
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