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Like many New Yorkers in these pandemic days, the five friends meet and eat outdoors: Chad, Philip Aries, Flour, Sam and Evening. No, they are not 21st-century followers of Charles Manson, but rather four-legged lawn mowers in the form of sheep brought to Governors Island to help curb unwanted growth and pave the way for further forestation of the 172-acre plot of land that few New Yorkers have ever set foot on.

I had a clear view of Governors Island from my southern-facing window on the 29th floor of One World Trade Center when such a building existed prior to 9/11. I never knew it was 172-acres until I read the story in the WSJ, but I did know when it was used as an Army base and a Coast Guard base it had a 9-hole golf course for the military residents.

As a military installation, it of course didn't really allow the public on the grounds, unlike now where a non-profit private trust is running the place. There are picnics and music festivals there now.

The caption from the above photo doesn't uniquely identify which sheep is which, nor tell us why there is one with a first name and a surname, but there you have it. The sheep are rented from Tivoli Lake Preserve and Farm in Albany for $4,500. Their use is expected to last 4-5 months. The Trust for Governors Island is using the sheep to eat their way through some nasty growth that is fairly inaccessible to modern machinery and in the way of planting 1,200 trees. The sheep eat the common reed and mugwort so close to the earth that the plants do not recover and flower and spread. They go kaput. Natural defoliation. No chemicals needed.

I can remember decades ago there were tickets available for the public to take a ferry ride to the island one Sunday. We got the tickets, but when the date rolled around we couldn't use them. Thus, I have never been on Governors Island.

And using sheep as labor is nothing new. The Sheep Meadow's name in Central Park derives from the era when sheep were set out to graze on the Great Lawn and keep the grass short. Of course, there is the drawback of sheep poop, but in the early days of Central Park, and right though the time Robert Moses was Parks Commissioner, walking on the grass was sort of frowned on.

It wasn't until Mayor John Lindsay's Park's Commissioner Thomas Hoving came on board in the 1960s that Central Park sort of opened its expanses to the public to use more vigorously. Concerts in particular were held in the summer on the Great Lawn in Sheep Meadow. By then, sheep were no longer used to keep the place trim. Good thing. Where you spread a blanket would require some extra care.

Green-Wood Cemetery likewise used sheep to keep the grass down between the tombstones. Green-Wood was a favorite picnic spot, when it opened, even with the sheep chomping on the grass.

The Governors Island sheep are well taken care of. They get the natural diet from the plants they eat, as well as water, grain and hay. They of course leave their gastric system byproduct on the ground, but that is useful fertilizer that doesn't require a purchase order to be filled out.

And then there is this. I'm sure there is human staff that stays on the island to insure care for any number of things.

Imagine being on Governors Island and looking at Manhattan that is less than a mile away, reflecting the sun in daytime and twinkling in nighttime and you're on a 172 bucolic island that's getting more bucolic with every chomp from a quintet of sheep.

And if you have trouble sleeping, there's always counting the real thing that is probably just outside your door. Up to five. Whatta life.

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