Having a yard is a privilege when you live in a big city. Room for the dogs, room to plant something, room for the children to play, room to park everything you own, and underneath all of it, a beautiful lawn.
But if you arenât privileged enough to also have a professional gardener, youâre going to have some problems.
Grass is a powerful plant. It grows fast and drinks a lot of water in minutes. The problem is that we insist on cutting it every week, because weâve decided grass is supposed to look like a carpet.
Keeping that carpet costs time, money, fuel and patience. I did try to review my own ideas about grass and take the whole carpet thing apart, and I failed. Every time I look at the yard and the grass is wild, I think, I need to do something about this.
One day I was round at a neighbourâs place. He keeps a lot of chickens, and where the chickens live you canât see any grass at all. The chickens cut everything that grows under them, he told me.
That was it. I could finally see a solution for my yard. All I had to do was manage the chickens so they didnât destroy the whole thing. Leandra found a project called a chicken tractor, a mobile structure you put chickens inside and move to a new spot every 3 days.
Follow the instructions:
- 30m of PVC pipe cut into 1m lengths
- 10 âLâ joints
- 20 âTâ joints
- 100 clips with UV protection
- 10m of chicken wire
Call your family and enjoy the puzzle.
Extra point for vegetarians: in a couple of days the chickens might make you a present of some wonderful eggs.
Update 1
The startup accelerator program Y Combinator asked me what kind of thing I have hacked that is not related to modern technology, and I sent them this. I never got accepted though. :p