Who actually likes mowing the lawn? Not me. Gas powered mowers are noisy, time-consuming, and belch more fossil fuels into the atmosphere per hour than the 11 cars. Yikes. Most of our yard can be allowed to grow wild and natural, but there are some portions, especially along the front patio that simply look better with trimmed grass.

Because one of the primary motivations for moving to our Appalachian homestead was the opportunity to live more sustainably and better connected with biologic systems, the question of how we would tend to our lawn became an exciting challenge to overcome with scrappiness and some new-found DIY skills.

Enter the rabbit lawn mower: a highly maneuverable device that allows our meat rabbits to graze our lawn. It puts them right at their food source without any risk of them escaping. No longer will be gather clover for the bunnies; now they can get it themselves! The best part is that Ian made it completely out of free scrap material that we gathered from our property and surrounding area.

The pivotal point of this project for us was finding free wheels. The lumber frame is pretty heavy, and dragging the contraption across the yard may have caused more damage than benefit in the long run. Rubber wheels at the local hardware store cost $40- far out of our predetermined budget of $0.

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