EmmonsNet

If anybody knows who and what Google is, they probably think that the monster of internet search and web technology is miles ahead of everybody else.

While in the market of internet search, that may be true - but as far as a more down to earth application of green techniques to manage the local environment they lag miles and millennia behind the rest of humanity.

I just read a blog entry about the big G's new fangled endeavor to handle yard work in a more environmentally friendly manner.  It turns out that the powers that be at their Mountain View headquarters hate the idea of listening to the mechanical droning of lawn mowers while they burn gasoline to chop away at the overgrown acreage. So they elected to have goats trucked in and set loose with their ravenous appetites and iron guts upon the brush and weeds.

People all over the web are applauding Google for taking this environmentally chummy solution. Google fan bois and girlz are drooling all over themselves to get their own personal goats to usurp the John Deer they keep in the garage to drive over the neatly short patch of sod in front of the suburban homes.

Well, not that I am trying to pee in their pools here, but I have to tell you that on this one Google is far behind my family and millions of other families .

Part of my childhood was spent in a rural community not far from the Google HQ. We had no shortage of live animals on the farm. That included goats.

Sure, we had cute little names for our goats like 'Sugar' and 'Cinnamon', but make not mistake about it - our horned, stubborn, furry and four legged friends were there for two purposes. To eat and to poop.

Everyday I would take them from their pen on the walk out to a different field that was growing high in the summer. I would tether them with long chains to stakes in the ground with five gallon buckets of water. Over the course of the day, no blade of grass or weed taller than an inch was spared the demise that waited for it within the guts of those goats.

At sunset I would return them to their pens, bloated with cellulose. During the night hours the contents of their bellies was converted into a all natural fertilizer that was better than anything you could buy at any price.

No fuel cost. No 'carbon foot print' . Just a low tech and self sustaining solution that provided answers to many needs on the farm.

Google may be the titan among tech giants, but I think all those IT monoliths could learn a thing or two about real efficiency and environmentally savvy practices just by asking your local small scale single family farms.

Most small scale farmers and ranchers may have dirt under their finger nails and think of clean flannel and blue jeans as dressy casual, but if you take the time to pick their brains, you will find that they are some of the smartest and resourceful people on the planet.