Count Your Sheep

For the first time, Dominion Energy will have a herd of sheep at a solar facility in Northern Virginia as part of a program designed to preserve the environment by limiting the need for gas-powered lawnmowers.

 

Right now, the power company has 125 sheep at its Remington Solar facility in Fauquier County. This is part of the sheep grazing program, where they use the animals to eat as much grass and vegetation as they can as an alternative to lawnmowers for maintaining the land around the solar panels.

 

Bill Renaud, who owns Carrington Farm, cares for the sheep at the Fauquier County facility. "It's less fuel, it's less labor. We reduce the carbon footprint. We reduce the cost of operation. We're getting local ag access to the land," Renaud said. "It's a win-win for everyone involved."

 

It's not just the facility benefitting. The sheep also get compensated by a bottomless buffet.

 

"They've got as much grass as they can get, Renaud said. “And they average about six pounds of dry matter a day. When you start to scale that out, that's 600 pounds a day."

 

According to Tim Eberly, a Dominion spokesman, "They're not picky eaters. They go through about 30-to-40 acres of grass every two or three days. They're just relentless."

 

Right now, Dominion Energy has the sheep grazing program at three solar facilities, which are among the largest in Virginia. This program could grow, as they look to double the number of solar facilities.

 

"We're trying to get to a carbon-free grid,” Eberly said. “It's obviously decades down the road, but we are developing more and more solar facilities every day to have a cleaner power grid: carbon-free, pollution free. We are hoping to develop more [solar facilities] - not just here, but statewide. We've got more than 70 large-scale solar facilities around the state right now. Over the next 15, 20 years we will be more than doubling that. I would imagine some of those would end up in Northern Virginia."

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Shenandoah Downs Offers a Horse for a Day  

 

This past spring, Shenandoah Downs in Woodstock, Va., gave eight lucky female racing fans a chance to "Own a Horse for a Day" and compete for a $5,000 purse on Mother's Day. With the fall racing season just around the corner, the track announced that eight male sports-oriented fans will get that same lucrative opportunity on Saturday, September 27.

 

Billed as a "Sports Fans Own a Horse for a Day " promotion, all male fans that attend the harness card sporting their favorite team or athlete's jersey will receive an entry into the Virginia Harness Horse Association's (VHHA) popular promotion that afternoon --- where $5,000 is divided among eight contestants based on where their horse finishes.

 

Eight names will be drawn at random after the third race. Those jersey-sporting winners will then select a horse in the ninth race that day via random draw --- that they will "own" for the rest of the afternoon. The eight winners will enjoy a complimentary lunch, with a guest included, t, then will meet their horse, driver and trainer in the paddock after the sixth race. For the ninth race, with $5,000 in prize/purse money on the line, the contestants will watch the race together on Shenandoah's VIP trackside viewing deck and cheer their horses on.

 

Prize money is awarded in the same manner normal purse winnings are --- on a 50-25-12-8-5 percent basis. The winner will receive $2,500 while the runner-up gets $1,250 followed by $600, $400 and $250 for the third thru fifth place finishers. The sixth, seventh and eighth place contestants will go home with $100 as a thank you gift for participating — and a memory.

 

The Shenandoah Downs fall pari-mutuel season, its tenth in Woodstock, will run from September 13 - October 26 with racing scheduled every Saturday and Sunday at 1:05 p.m. Horsemen racing applications are available at shenandoahdowns.com and are due back to the racing office by August 13. A four-day non-wagering meet will precede the fall campaign and take place during the Shenandoah County Fair on August 27-30 with a daily noon post time.

 

NEWS from Len Shapiro, editor and publisher
and Vicky Moon, managing editor

 

Our Autumn/August-September issue of Country ZEST is now out.  We’re in a bit of a celebratory mode, mostly because this edition marks the six-year anniversary of our inaugural magazine in 2019. It’s been quite a ride, and we’re also thrilled with another record-tying 88-page edition, which also included more than 50 stories, six different photo layouts. Also, we’re excited to welcome a new addition to our team—advertising director Vicky Mayshaw—who will be focusing on our website, as well as new magazine advertisers. She can be reached at vickymashaw@icloud.com (no y in mashaw).