When she hears something that intrigues her, Ellen Howie takes action.

Early one Sunday morning, she heard a broadcast on National Public Radio about No Mow May.

“It captured my imagination,” says Howie in this week’s Enterprise podcast. “And I thought, ‘Well, that’s easy.’”

As she talked to The Enterprise last Friday, she likened her lawn to a prairie or to undulating ocean waves. Howie named the many wildflowers flourishing there and declared, “I just think it’s beautiful.”

Howie lives at the end of Prospect Terrace so her neighbors have not been bothered by her wild lawn, she says. She revels in seeing new flowers as she walks to her compost pile.

Her husband, Dick Howie, who died a year ago, on June 2, used to love to be outdoors, mowing their lawn. “He was quite a particular man and liked things orderly,” says Howie. “On the other hand, I’m not particular. I’m not very orderly …. I like the wild things.”

The Howies were happily married for 63 years. They met in the Ramsey High School band; she was a freshman, playing the French horn while he was a junior who sat nearby, playing the trombone.

No Mow May, which encourages people not to mow their lawns during the month of May so as to increase plant diversity as well as nectar for pollinators, was launched by the charity Plantlife in Great Britain in 2019. It has caught on in many places in the United States with some entire cities signing on.

Read the full story at https://altamontenterprise.com/06132022/ellen-howie-understands-consequences-care

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