Vt. Town Hires Livestock To Save Money, Go Green

Cities and towns facing tight budgets have often neglected their cemeteries, an oversight that has left many of them in disrepair with broken fencing, crumbling gravestones, overgrown grass and persistent weeds.

But this summer, the Vermont town of Charlotte implemented a new strategy to both save money and keep grass in the town’s graveyards under control, and it’s a decidedly traditional way of doing it: Let goats and sheep do the work.

Stephen Brooks, who oversees two graveyards in town and smaller plots as chairman of the town’s Cemetery Commission, admits it’s all rather pastoral. He says it’s also a financial necessity.