Relative Something

After my recent effort mowing the back pasture to control weeds and improve grazing for the horses, walking past the grass field in the area we call our north loop has me wondering what to do there. We don’t graze the horses there but it has been cut for hay the last few years.

It’s possible the person I’ve offered the main hay field this year will also be interested in baling the north loop again, but not a certainty. Whether he wants it this time or not, I’ve been wondering about a longer-term plan for that area.

My first preference would be to allow it to become an untended natural field of native growth, something I tend to think of as intentionally neglected growth. The challenge for me is becoming well enough informed about what is desirable native growth and what is invasive and problematic. That foils the part about neglect.

Honestly, I wish we didn’t need to intervene in any natural growth on our land. It would be a lot less work. My dream is to manage our fields and forest in the present so that they get healthier and require less effort in the future. Admittedly, neglect isn’t the correct term for my intentions, but it’s more dramatic than saying “do less work.”

I like having some treeless fields to complement our wooded acres but planting trees comes more naturally to me than nurturing a meadow. At the same time, it is fun to pop out of the woods on a walk with Delilah and cruise down the path mowed in the tall grass.

Since my neighbor to the south is one to mow a larger and larger majority of his land, having some natural grassland on our acres for the benefit of the wildlife it supports feels like it holds added merit.

I intend to neglect taking any immediate action, mainly because I can. I’ll keep thinking about the fields’ future while walking along the grass path and enjoying it as it is today.

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