Pickup Sticks
Those of us who love having trees in our yards enjoy an ongoing demonstration of how much branch-shedding is regularly happening. There are always sticks and twigs landing on the ground beneath the canopy. Often there are finger-sized branches down. Occasionally, we find bigger branches in the mix, and every once in a while, a full limb drops.
I admit to subjecting the blades of our mowers to far more sticks and small branches than they deserve due to the sheer volume always hiding in the grass. When I wait too long between mowings, the number of branches gets too big to ignore. We’ve endured several days of on-again, off-again rain that stymied my plans to cut the grass around the house as soon as I wanted. Before I finally got around to the job yesterday, I needed to pick up sticks.
It doesn’t look that bad through a camera lens, but grasping each and every one by hand is an exercise of repetitive motion. Every time I turn around, I seem to find one that got missed. A wiser person might use a rake.
There is a mental reward for taking the time to clean up before mowing: peace of mind from not abusing the mower blades.
Of course, peaceful mowing is blissful mowing. And now the backyard is looking rather sharp (and stick-free) after yesterday’s cut if, I do say so myself.
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Relative Something 
Oh my goodness, yes. I just spent probably an hour a day for about 7 days cleaning up from two large trunks of a magnolia tree that fell over in our yard. I couldn’t even mow that part of the yard until they were cleaned up. I even went the extra step of chipping up the branches small enough to fit in my chipper. I gave the bigger pieces to a neighbor to burn in his wood stove. Of course I used the tree being in the yard as an excuse not to mow other parts of the yard. (I did mow one section.)
Jim Parker
August 19, 2024 at 7:35 pm
Good to hear from you, Jim! We are kindred spirits in the ways of tending to our properties. How are the horses?
johnwhays
August 19, 2024 at 7:38 pm
Horses are doing fine. Thoma has decided to give up riding due to lack of time and just safety concerns. We ended up with another horse who I suspect will live out her life with us. She was the brood mare of our dear friend who died just before last Christmas. The people who ended up with her were just going to put her down rather than take care of her. We certainly didn’t need another horse but even I feel this is a proper way to honor our friend. She would not of but this horse down at this point.
Jim Parker
August 20, 2024 at 6:46 pm
This is a precious way to honor your friend. NOT riding is a safe choice for Thoma and offers the horses one less burden to bear.
johnwhays
August 20, 2024 at 8:36 pm