Relative Something

The backlog of things we would like done on our property is more than we can realistically accomplish on any given day, so we step out the door with vague intentions and see what claims our attention first. The driving factor is either how fast things are growing or what tree or branch has fallen and needs to be cut up and processed.

We also need to react to whatever the weather brings and adjust our agenda accordingly. Yesterday, the wildfire smoke was annoying, and the high dew point temperature made things a sweaty mess, but since there was no rain, we chose to cut and trim mid-summer growth.

Cyndie took the battery-powered string trimmer down to the labyrinth, and I headed for the north loop trail with the hedge trimmer and a rake.

My goal was to create a smooth wall of foliage along the trail marking the northern edge of our property. There is a rusty old barbed wire fence just inside all that growth.

I think it looks better as a hedge wall.

While I was working, I received a call from Cyndie. She needed my help with the trimmer because the line broke off inside the spool. I told her I would be right down.

When I got to the labyrinth, she wasn’t there. I called her back, and she told me she had gone up to the shop.

If there are two different ways to do something, we will always choose the opposite of one another.

As the afternoon wore on, I finished mowing down by the road and around the house. I found Cyndie disassembling our broken kitchen compost bin so we could put the pieces in the trash before it gets picked up this morning. A replacement bin is on order.

I finished trimming along the north loop trail and mowed along the edge of several trails. They will all need to be raked as a result. This time of year, if we don’t deal with the rampant growth along the sides of our trails, tall weeds, and grasses droop over and almost make the pathways impassable.

At one point during the hot afternoon, I caught a glimpse of the horses hanging out under the shade sail. That was one of the highlights of my day.

Today, I get to choose between mowing the labyrinth, trimming under the fence line around the back pasture, using the hedge trimmer on the last length of the north loop trail, using the string trimmer on the trails through the woods, or using the chainsaw to cut up the large limb of the oak tree that is still laying across one of our trails.

If I don’t feel like picking any of those, I could always rake the clippings off the trails where I mowed the edges yesterday. With how fast everything grows, if we don’t tend to some part of it every day, it just gets harder to keep up with the groundskeeping tasks.

It seems like a lot of work –and it is– but it’s a labor of LOVE!

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