INDIANAPOLIS - A unique landscaping project on the city's near east side involves vacant properties and sheep.

Hamilton Avenue, with almost as many vacant homes as occupied ones, has seen better days, but Twisty and Lilly do their part to maintain the neighborhood.

"If it is between a foot and 18 inches high, three days they will have it mowed," said their handler, Sue Spicer.

Spicer walks the sheep every day, and the animals move from one delinquent property to another like four-legged lawnmowers, keeping the grass and weeds in check.

Spicer and the sheep were at the fairgrounds this week sharing their neighborhood initiative with others.

She is in the process of applying for liability insurance and taking other necessary steps to get the city on board with this unusual landscaping plan.

"The way the lots get mowed at this point by the city, they don't pick up the trash first and then they stopped doing the fence lines," Spicer said.

And while they are just grazing like sheep do, for others their work means changing a neighborhood.

"We're not necessarily trying to change the entire world," Spicer said. "We're going to change our world and then we will teach people how they can change theirs."

Spicer hopes to contract her shepherd project to other agencies in the future.