Relative Something

It feels like our spell of extremely dry conditions has caused some plants to end their growing phase a little early in the season. A few of the sumac leaves are losing their green color and turning red already.

The trails in the woods are opening back up as leaves and stems are starting to wither. The trees that drop their leaves early have started to cover the ground with shriveled and twisted brown leaves.

Even though the hay field was hardly lush with growing grass, it was greatly in need of being mowed to knock down Queen Anne’s Lace and a variety of other bothersome weeds and tree sprouts threatening to take over. Cyndie looked up suggestions for improving our field and learned that the most effective thing we can do, if we are intent on avoiding chemical spraying, is to mow it regularly.

I dread mowing the 5-acre hay field with our relatively small brush cutter because it takes so dang long. I spent over 4 hours making pass after pass on it Friday. It was also frustrating to see how many times the tall weeds simply lay flat under the tires as they rolled by, so that the rotating blade passed right over them without cutting.

The horses didn’t seem to care.

From a distance, the field looks pretty nice. It could probably fool a passerby into thinking I used a finishing mower instead of the brush cutter with a really dull blade.

While I was stuck on the tractor seat for hours on end, I watched Cyndie using the string trimmer to cut beneath the fence line. Boy, does she work fast. It made my slog back and forth in tight little lines feel like it was taking even longer.

I failed to notice her getting stung in the ankle multiple times by a wasp. When I got back to the house, she had her foot propped up and was icing it.

Asher added a little of his own excitement as we were headed down to feed the horses later in the afternoon. I noticed him intently focused on a spot under a pine tree, just staring. When I looked back a second time and found him still frozen in the same position, I had a good sense of what was coming next.

Sure enough, he reared up and pounced, driving his snout into the dusty, dry soil with two quick paw-swipes and came up with a mole. What always follows is a protracted pacing around the property for the perfect place to bury his catch. He looked so lost that I commanded him to come bury it behind the barn, where we could keep an eye on him. He deemed that an acceptable option.

A few minutes later, he was back in the barn, regally reclining like the great and successful hunter that he is.

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