It doesn't happen all the time, but Mo does have run-ins with various things around the yard (as you've seen in some past Mo Monday blog posts). Mo usually gets caught up in something we moved or put in his way. Today, I'll simply share a few more of the challenges he has faced while just trying to do his job.

A few weeks ago, I harvested our onions. As I was washing them, I saw him making his way to his robot house. He was clearly destined for failure with this heap of onions in his path. Wanting to save the onions from potential mowing, I grabbed a quick photo and helped Mo leap over the pile to get home.

Another day we left this patio chair in the grass. Mo and chairs...they just don't always get along.

Then there was that one time, in the front yard when I removed the wooden edge along the grass. Mo fell out of his mowing area, and got stuck in the plant, you can see in the top photo, while trying to get back to work.

While working in the front yard, we had used our edging tool to create a nice edge along our sidewalk. However, something like 30 years of sedimentation resulted in creating quite a drop off between the grass and the sidewalk. We have discovered that, when Mo hits it straight on, it can be very challenging.

To be fair, Mo generally has success with the edge, as long as he takes it at a slight angle. This video is from soon after we did the edging.

Don't forget! The Raise The Blade planning team is looking for people (ages 18+ who live in the Lake Champlain basin) to share #RaiseTheBlade photos and stories via social media, and to enter for a chance to win an electric mulching mower. The drawing will take place on Labor Day 2020! Learn more at lawntolake.org.

Read more Mo Monday blogs on Kris Stepenuck's blog page.

As a resident of Burlington, Vermont and an environmental sciences student, it’s hard not to notice the downhill movement of rain to Lake Champlain when a large storm rolls through. Sediment, heavy metals, bacteria, and phosphorus gradually join the swirling mixture until it reaches the closest body of water or gutter. That rainfall, although an innocuous event, signifies a deeper problem within our community: managing our stormwater.

From the “resident of Burlington” perspective, this kind of a storm may mean driving across miniature rivers in the streets, property damage from erosion, or perhaps a closed day at the beach. From the “environmental sciences student” perspective, this surplus of water signifies alarm bells ringing to the tune of eutrophication. Eutrophication happens when increased nutrient loads reach the nearest body of water—Lake Champlain, in this case—and cause algal blooms, which effectively take the oxygen out of the lake and can subsequently kill the organisms that occupy it. Eutrophication is a global problem that happens to be exacerbated in Burlington due to the urban expansion uphill of Lake Champlain and other causes.

Over the past year, I have been working as an intern through University of Vermont (UVM) Extension, Lake Champlain Sea Grant, and the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to delve into an effective and simple solution to this stormwater problem: Green Infrastructure.

Green Infrastructure (GI) can be defined as the natural systems that surround us, like forests, wetlands, and soil, plus the nature-based infrastructure, like rain gardens and constructed wetlands, that are engineered to bring the strategies and processes of natural systems into the built environment. Both the natural and engineered systems are doing work for our communities, like improving water quality and creating habitat. Green Infrastructure is much broader in scope than many people realize and can encompass vegetated swales, permeable pavers, infiltration steps, or filter berms. The main mantra of GI, in regard to stormwater, is to "slow it down, spread it out, and soak it in."

Examples of Green Infrastructure

• Rain garden: depressed area of vegetation to clean stormwater runoff from roads, driveways, parking lots, and roofs
• Rain barrel: large container to collect roof/gutter runoff water for future use
• Vegetated swale: broad shallow channel to move and infiltrate stormwater
• Permeable paver: a type of pavement that allows rainwater to filter through it
• Infiltration steps: crushed stone used on sloping pathways or in wooden steps
• Filter berm: a temporary ridge of stone to slow flow and retain sediment from a traffic area

In contrast to Grey Infrastructure (conventional pipes/tubes to move water away from its source), GI works efficiently by mimicking the water cycle. Stormwater flows over a more pervious surface and is able to infiltrate into the ground at an increased rate rather than act as runoff. GI doesn’t necessarily have to entail the construction of a whole new system and can include activities such as restoring a wetland habitat, building a park, or even planting a tree.

As an intern, this definition has shifted and changed for me over the past year. I began to focus more on the human aspect and the types of relationships people typically have with these systems. The average person may want to do their part to help the environment but is often unsure of where to start. Barriers to adopting GI systems often vary based on location and accessibility and, in the case of New England, may include the effects of colder climates on operation and maintenance.

By producing educational materials for homeowners and municipalities, Lake Champlain Sea Grant, UVM Extension, and Vermont DEC smooth this transition from grey to green. Some of the most memorable projects that I have had the pleasure of working on include: revising the current “Vermont Rain Garden Manual” (soon to come!), compiling research on the maintenance aspect of GI, or helping to organize the Green Infrastructure Summit right at the UVM Davis Center.

In Vermont, we have community members that deeply care about and advocate for the Lake Champlain basin. We have an opportunity to pioneer effective Green Infrastructure practices and inspire other states to do the same. Homeowners, not just municipalities, can build a rain garden or plant a tree. They can advocate for permeable pavers and incorporate natural plants into their own stormwater management. If a system works in slowing it (the rainwater) down, spreading it out, and soaking it in, GI is in place and working to enhance Vermont’s natural ability to manage stormwater.

Water quality impacts each and every one of us. When humans take a step back and help nature take its course, rather than engineering a new system, we can reap the social, environmental, and economic benefits that inherently come with it.

Learn more about how you can practice Green Infrastructure.

While Mo is great, and saves us a lot of time, my husband and I, as new homeowners, soon realized that lush green grass isn’t guaranteed with only regular mowing and that other factors can impact grass health. In our case, creeping Charlie, or ground ivy, crept in rather handily to one area of our lawn, and another area was damaged during a yard project. Since weeds can take over when a lawn is not healthy (which we suspected as a possible reason that creeping Charlie was able to be so successful where it had come in) and to best prepare to re-establish the lawn in the damaged area, we knew that it was important to understand characteristics of our soil. This is true for anyone who wants to maintain a healthy lawn. Understanding the health of your soil can inform actions you take to keep your grass healthy.

Here in the Lake Champlain basin, the University of Vermont (UVM) Agricultural and Environmental Testing Laboratory is a valuable resource to guide landowners through the soil sampling process and to analyze the sample once it is collected. They provide step-by-step guidance on how to collect a soil sample. For those without a soil probe, like us, you can sample using a trowel or shovel. I found it easiest to use two.

Their guidance explains that it is very important to sample from at least 10 locations in your yard (collected in a zig-zag pattern) and to combine those samples into one for analysis.

To sample, initially, push the trowel into the ground to a depth of about 4-6 inches, creating a triangle shape of ground to remove from the lawn. Set this aside, so you can later replace it to hide the location where you collected the soil sample.

Next, re-insert the trowel into the open hole, cutting out a 1/2-inch sliver of soil from one of the edges. Then cut away the edges of that sample, leaving about a 1-inch mid-section of soil.

Add that sample to the container into which you are collecting samples.

Replace the triangle-shaped piece, and move to the next location to collect a sample.

After you add the triangle piece back to the lawn, the spot from which you sampled is completely hidden.

After you have collected the 10 samples, mix all of the soil in the container to create a uniform mixture.

Add this to your sample bag, complete the form that you can download from the lab’s website, and send the sample and payment to the lab. You can expect results in a few weeks (accounting for shipping time for your sample to reach them).

The results come with easy to understand guidance on how to interpret them, including recommendations on how much and which nutrients to apply based on your results.

We learned some useful information and good lessons as we collected the soil samples and took action to re-establish our lawn in the two troubled areas. These include:

1. Sampling the soil with the trowel was not easy in our very clayey soil (which was sometimes overlaid with small rocks spilled there during the yard project). As a result, we may not have sampled quite deep enough. In the future, we will borrow or buy a soil probe to simplify the sampling process.
2. In Vermont and New York, fertilizers with phosphorus can only be used on lawns if a soil test confirms phosphorus is needed or when establishing a new lawn. You can learn more about these regulations and the reason why the simple message to remember is “Don’t P on your lawn” at the Lawn to Lake website. Since general fertilizing of lawn is recommended for early fall (and not during other times of the year), August is a great time to sample soil in preparation for fertilizing as is needed.
3. The creeping Charlie in our yard was effectively killed by laying a large tarp on the infested area from early August through the winter until late April/early May. At that point, we removed the tarp, turned over the soil with a shovel, removed dead plant material that remained, fertilized (following guidance for establishing a new lawn), and re-seeded the area. We compacted it just by walking on it due to COVID business closures and inability to rent a roller.
4. To establish a new lawn, daily watering is critical. In the area that had been damaged during the yard work, we watered, but not as consistently as we might have. That resulted in numerous weeds sneaking in, which then had to be dealt with later.

In the area that had the creeping Charlie, we were very consistent in daily watering this spring and the grass thrived. (Note: creeping Charlie has since developed in a ~10-inch strip along one edge where the tarp didn’t quite cover. The plan is to place a tarp there to kill it in the next few weeks, and re-seed the area next spring.)

Read more Mo Monday blogs on Kris Stepenuck's blog page.

This Mo Monday, we’d like to mention a very important topic! That is, the Raise the Blade team is running a contest this summer. People over 18 who live in the Lake Champlain basin can enter for a chance to win a mulching mower! The idea is to help one lucky winner implement the recommended Raise the Blade lawn care practices, while getting to see many people’s ongoing actions to Raise The Blade.

You might wonder how a mulching mower could help someone to implement the Raise the Blade best practices. Since a mulching mower cuts lawn clippings into very small pieces and leaves them in place to decompose, they are easily broken down by soil microorganisms and add nutrients right back to the soil. This adds organic matter to the soil, which helps it to hold more water. Soils that can hold more water help limit the amount of stormwater runoff that leaves a yard, and that’s the ultimate goal of the Raise the Blade campaign.

To enter the contest, simply enter your contact information here, and share a photo of you or someone else following Raise the Blade recommended practices, or showing your grass cut to 3″ in height. You can share your photo via email by sending it to seagrant [at] uvm.edu or via social media by posting it to Twitter and tagging @lakechamp or to Instagram, tagging @lakechamplainbasinprogram and using the hashtag #RaiseTheBlade. The drawing will be held on Labor Day 2020.

Now, about Mo and that Adirondack chair…my husband finished building this and another chair a few weeks ago, and we placed them in the yard in a nice shady spot for some summertime reading and relaxation. We knew Mo would bump into the chairs, but watched him carefully the first time he approached them. I even recorded it, not knowing what might result. Things went perfectly smoothly, which you can see in the video below.

Mo meets the Adirondack chair – the first time.

However, as you can see from the photo at the top, Mo’s second meeting with one of the chairs didn’t go as smoothly. That, or maybe he was trying his hand at being Atlas?

Read more Mo Monday blogs on Kris Stepenuck's blog page.

As COVID-19 continues to force radical changes to the education system, harsh bottom lines in the tourism industry, and unsettling uncertainty in our food supply chain in the Lake Champlain basin, Lake Champlain Sea Grant continues to rapidly adapt community activities in education, tourism, and aquaculture in Vermont and northern New York.

Place-based education at home and on the water

Sea Grant educators pivoted to virtual learning in twice-weekly, one-hour online watershed education sessions from March through June. Hundreds of kids, parents, and educators tuned in to the Zoom-a-Webinar series to learn from experts about topics ranging from trout to sturgeon, road salt to phosphorus, and cartography to environmental law. Experts covered the context, the science, and their own career paths. Students and teachers continue to access the recordings.

In August, Lake Champlain Sea Grant will launch the self-paced Watershed Explorer Challenge program online and in print, thanks to new funding from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and a partnership with libraries in Vermont and nearby New York communities underserved by wireless communication services. By participating in the Watershed Explorer Challenge, students will conduct many of the same ecological investigations they would in the classroom and on-water.

For the first time this summer, Lake Champlain Sea Grant is providing scholarships for low-income students to participate in summer watershed education programs at the Community Sailing Center in Burlington and the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in Vergennes.

“Our goal is to increase all students’ awareness and knowledge of watershed issues," said Ashley Eaton, Watershed and Lake Education Coordinator for Lake Champlain Sea Grant and University of Vermont Extension. We engage with all communities, independent of their access to resources or the speed of their internet connections. COVID-19 hasn’t changed that.”

COVID-smart tourism

Sustaining the coastal tourism industry during a pandemic is a tall order. Businesses must adopt new operating procedures to protect both people and the coastal resources on which they depend. And tourists must practice safe social distancing and follow stringent hygiene practices while minimizing impacts to water quality and infrastructure. For example, disinfectant wipes clogged scores of septic and municipal water systems in March and April, until a communications campaign reminded people to put disinfectant wipes in the trash.

COVID-smart reminders, including about proper disposal of disinfectant wipes, are in each of the 25,000 business guides published by the Lake Champlain Islands Economic Development Corporation this year, for the first time in partnership with Lake Champlain Sea Grant. And a Lake Champlain Islands COVID-smart photo contest aims to further that message. Enter the contest by sending a photo showing “COVID-smartness” on the islands to info [at] lakechamplain.com or posting on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LCIEDC.

COVID closed marinas’ doors and docks for months. Recently opened, 27 marinas on Lake Champlain and Lake George sport new safety signs and rack cards describing local guidelines for health and safety on the docks, in marina stores, at the fuel pumps, at pump-out facilities, and in restrooms. The information is available both in English and French, though boaters from Quebec are not yet allowed to travel to the United States.

“We are counting on local tourism this year,” said Sherri Potvin, Director of the Lake Champlain Islands Economic Development Corporation. “Everyone wants to do the right thing, for their health, others’ health, and the environment. Sharing information is more important than ever.”

Halted interstate transport raises demand for local food, including fish

Since the beginning of the pandemic, food insecurity has risen by as much as 33% within areas of the Lake Champlain basin, and a record number of households have sought food assistance through public programs in recent weeks. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the importance of local food production to ensure access to food, reduce dependence on highly variable supply chains, and sustain and stimulate local economies.

Fish is seldom found on a locavore plate in and around Lake Champlain, as there is no commercial fishing and just 10 aquaculture businesses known to be operating in the basin. But new technologies in aquaculture and training for entrepreneurs may change that.

Lake Champlain Sea Grant aims to increase communities’ access to local food through aquaculture network development, business advising and development, and training, with a focus on new technologies for cost-efficient and environmentally sustainable production. The program will begin this fall. Entrepreneurs interested in aquaculture should write seagrant [at] uvm.edu for more information.

Last Mo Monday, I mentioned some small milkweeds in a photo comparing our yard to our neighbors. One thing we have observed is that Mo isn’t great at mowing things that are not grass. That’s good in some cases (e.g., my sister’s dog didn’t seem to mind when Mo bounced off of her during his workday while she was visiting – his blades shut off immediately if he hits anything, so she wasn’t at risk).

It is not-so-good in other cases. Case in point, Mo seems to simply pass over milkweed, leaving it untouched by his blades. This might be a lesson to us that it is time to replace his blades. It’s also good for monarch butterflies, of course, but not always the look one wants in their yard.

So, here is a quick lesson in changing Mo’s blades; it’s quite simple, really. First, unplug the system, so there’s no chance you will turn it on accidentally while changing the blades. Then, flip the unit upside down to expose its three blades.

Next, carefully unscrew each blade, and either turn it around to use an unused cutting edge of the blade (though, notice that the new style replacement blades are not set up for this) or change to a new blade.

And, voila, you’re done! Flip him upright, plug the system back in, and off he goes.

About that giant milkweed that Mo tangled with above…that occurred after we had shut Mo down for several weeks last summer. The milkweed grew along his boundary wire. When he didn’t show up back at his base station on the day we set him back out in the yard to mow, we went looking for him. We found him almost entirely vertical, having driven up the milkweed stem while diligently trying to make his way home. Or maybe he was trying to do the Mobot?

Read more Mo Monday blogs on Kris Stepenuck's blog page.

Moving down the road from Mo for the moment, as part of the Raise the Blade project, in 2017, we partnered with10 Burlington area businesses to establish research plots where undergraduate interns would manage two grass plots at each business by mowing them to 3″ and 2″ in height, respectively.

We know from our basin-wide survey that, on average, 53% of Lake Champlain basin homeowners maintain their grass to 2-3” in height. This group is motivated to potentially cut their grass to 3″ in length instead of shorter for reasons most often related to grass health and health of the environment, so we set out to use demonstration research sites at local businesses to see if cutting grass to 3″ would result in measurable differences in grass health over time as compared to cutting grass to 2″. (Peer-reviewed literature suggests it is, but research was generally conducted under different conditions than here in the Lake Champlain basin.)

The students would take a variety of measurements to assess grass and soil health over time. This was set up as a long-term (~10 year) experiment, as we hypothesized that changes in grass and soil health would be slow to develop, if any changes occurred at all.

In addition to collecting annual soil samples that are analyzed at the lab, weekly each summer and fall, the student researchers collect information such as percent grass cover, percent clover cover, and percent bare ground within a 1-meter square quadrat.

They also measure how long it takes for water to infiltrate into the ground and assess soil compaction.

In 2019, we ran analyses on a variety of parameters the students assess after collecting two years of data. We found no statistical differences between the 3″ and the 2″ research plots (as expected). However, as can be seen in the photo at business partner, Curtis Lumber, at the top of the page, visually, the grass cut to 3″ sometimes appears to be slightly more drought resistant than the grass cut to 2″.

Back in our yard, when the neighbor’s landscaping company mows, they sometimes cut the grass very short along the boundary line between our yards. Initially, the difference between where Mo mows (on the right) and where the landscaping company mows is striking.

Our lawn is also stressed, but is not nearly as burnt as our neighbor’s. To be fully transparent about the site, our rain gutter empties near the front of the photo at the right–by the milkweeds. As such, that grass has an added source of water and is clearly more green than elsewhere. However, while the lawn towards the back of the photo is less green and obviously stressed, the grass is visibly more stressed in our neighbor’s yard than in our own. So, while the jury is still out on whether there are measurable differences between grass and soil health when grass is managed to 2″ vs. 3″, generally-speaking, grass cut very short is visibly less tolerant to drought and high temperatures than grass cut to 3″.

Read more Mo Monday blogs on Kris Stepenuck's blog page.

There are several great things about robotic mowers like Mo. First, they save you time, which we know is important to landowners in the Lake Champlain basin when it comes to lawn mowing.

As we started the Raise the Blade project, we surveyed people around the Lake Champlain basin to understand their lawn care practices and motivations to potentially mow their grass no shorter than 3″ in length if they were not doing so already. (Check out this Lake Champlain Basin Program map that you can zoom in on to see if your town lies within this drainage basin).

More than 1000 people from 56 towns across the Lake Champlain basin answered our survey. (Thank you all!)

We learned that almost 90% of homeowners mow their lawns (rather than having someone else do it), and on average, 75% cut their lawns shorter than 3″. We also learned that those who mow their grass to between 2″ and 3″ in height would be motivated to cut their grass to the recommended 3″ length for three main reasons:

• If the lawn was healthier as a result (67%);
• If mowing it to that length was good for the environment (64%); and
• If they had to mow less often (58%).

The first two are absolutely true and therefore make our job of marketing these best practices to the majority of people who cut their lawns to 2-3″ pretty easy. Unfortunately, cutting your lawn following the three recommended practices (i.e., cutting the grass no shorter than 3″ in height; cutting only 1/3 of the length of the grass blades in any one cutting, and leaving the clippings in place to decompose) doesn’t result in less time mowing, unless you either get someone else to mow it for you or get something else to mow it for you. There’s where Mo comes in. We have him programmed to mow every week day for several hours. That frees up time for us to do other things besides mowing the lawn on our weekends or weeknights.

Having said that, it occurs to me that I should mention that robotic mowers like Mo don’t have blades like your traditional gas-powered mower. Instead they have just three 1″ razor blades.

Rather than cut every blade of grass they go over, Mo and his fellow robots rely upon lots of time spent out doing their job, and many passes over the same spot to ensure every blade of grass is cut.

Here’s a close up of one of Mo’s blades with the dime for size comparison.

Additional benefits of using a robotic mower are that it can be programmed to — or it automatically follows — all three recommended grass-cutting practices. This helps to boost your lawn’s health, soil health, and ultimately benefits water quality by minimizing the amount of stormwater that will run off from the yard. Specifically:

We set Mo to cut the grass to 3″ in length.

Each time Mo heads out in our yard to mow, he cuts only a small amount of the length of the grass blades.

Mo always leaves the clippings to decompose in place.

Of the three practices, only setting the length to which Mo cuts the grass needs to be done manually, and this is easily done by turning a dial under the main cover on the body of the mower.

One further benefit of robotic mowers is that they are beautifully quiet. Being electric, most of the sound we hear from Mo’s direction is that of the grass blades being cut, though he does have a slight hum. For all intents and purposes though, Mo is silent in comparison to a traditional gas-powered mower. So, we feel good about not contributing to noise pollution in our neighborhood. All the more time to listen to the birds.

Read more about Mo on Kris Stepenuck's blog pages.

Ruth Beecher, a fifth and sixth-grade teacher at Robinson Elementary School in Starksboro, Vermont, learned how to construct a pollinator rain garden to reduce stormwater runoff and pollutant movement to streams and lakes. Then she taught her students. With a little bit of social distancing and a lot of help from families, Beecher and 14 of her students created and planted the rain garden at the school this spring.

The path to her rain garden began in fall 2019, when Beecher took a University of Vermont (UVM) course on stormwater education with Lake Champlain Sea Grant education and outreach staff. She brought what she learned into her classroom and taught her students about stormwater and practices, such as rain gardens, that can mitigate stormwater runoff in their local watershed.

She completed her year-long study with the installation of a pollinator rain garden. During this spring’s COVID-19 school closure and social distancing requirements, Beecher had each of her students’ families sign up for a 30-minute planting slot over a three-day period to complete the garden during the first week in June.

“After teaching remotely for over two months, it was such a joy to see my students in person, albeit with masks and no hugs allowed,” said Beecher.

With plants obtained at Rockydale Nursery, in Bristol, Vermont, through grant funding from the Tari Shattuck Education Foundation, each student chose a Vermont native pollinator to plant in the garden. During the winter, Beecher’s students had researched which perennials would be best for the site.

“It was amazing during COVID-19 to do a bit of our ‘usual’ teaching and learning — outdoor education and hands-on work involving the stormwater education project we had started way back in the fall,” said Beecher. “I am thrilled that my students can watch these perennials come back year after year and know that they are helping to prevent stormwater runoff as well as providing blooms for pollinators.”

View the installation of the class’ rain garden in this video:

The Stormwater Education Methods course, taught by Lake and Watershed Education Coordinator Ashley Eaton and Extension Leader Kris Stepenuck, provides professional development for in-service teachers, like Beecher, and pre-service teachers who are undergraduate students at the University of Vermont. They learn the key concepts about watersheds, stormwater, and using nature-based solutions, like rain gardens, to treat and minimize stormwater runoff and then implement the curriculum with upper elementary, middle, and/or high school students.

“The course is based on a curriculum called Soaking Up Stormwater Through Stewardship in the Lake Champlain Basin that former Lake Champlain Sea Grant staff member, Sarah Coleman, created a few years ago in partnership with the Lake Champlain Committee,” said Eaton. “It was designed to help break down barriers to classroom participation in stewardship activities that can lead to reduced stormwater runoff to local waterways.”

This fall, in an effort to assist middle and high school teachers who may have to teach remotely and to meet needs of UVM students attending classes from other locations, the course will be taught fully online. Eaton and Stepenuck are preparing short video lessons to introduce the curriculum activities and facilitate engagement of not only participating teachers, but their middle and high school classes through asynchronous hands-on learning. In addition, they have lined up a series of stormwater management professionals who will share their expertise through virtual presentations throughout the fall semester.

“We are thrilled to see the outcome of Ruth and her class’ efforts, especially in light of the physical-distancing restrictions that are in place,” said Stepenuck. “Their efforts to establish a garden on their school grounds provides a multitude of benefits – from minimizing stormwater runoff, to providing pollinator habitat, to being aesthetically pleasing. It’s a fantastic outcome to celebrate.”

This is a blog about Mo, the robotic lawnmower, the things he does, and the reasons why those matter. Mo is actually obsolete, despite his blog just beginning. So it goes. Mo is affectionately named after the famous Mo Farah, the British distance runner, in part, due to my hopes and those of my husband about how great of a job he would do mowing our lawn (emulating Sir Farah in his excellence), and in part, due to his name being the right one for a robot that mows the lawn. (Here is an NBC video clip of Mo Farah winning Olympic gold in the 10,000m at the 2012 Olympics if you don’t know him. He’s amazing!)

Mo, the mower – nowhere near as fast as Sir Farah – is a WORX Landroid M WG794. He came about in our lives when we bought a house, owned no lawn mower, and I was (and actually I still am) working on a project to promote homeowners and businesses to cut their lawns following three key recommended practices that benefit both the grass and the environment: cut the lawn no shorter than 3″ in height; cut only 1/3 of the length of the blades during each cutting; and leave the clippings to decompose on the ground. This Raise the Blade project, as it is called, is part of a broader project called Lawn To Lake. This is a collaborative of organizations in the Lake Champlain Basin working to promote lawn care practices that help reduce polluted stormwater runoff from reaching Lake Champlain.

This blog will be updated weekly (on “Mo Mondays”) during the Mo-wing months to share information about how we installed Mo, how well he does his job, his antics, and the goals the Raise the Blade project aims to reach.

Read the complete Mo Monday blogs on Kris Stepenuck's blog pages.