Relative Something

I have developed a new fascination with growing grass, which seems funny to me, since I put so much energy into not growing grass during the 25 years we lived in Eden Prairie. Now, as I drive through the countryside, I take note of the neighbors who have grass fields for cutting hay. There are a couple on the way into Ellsworth that look pristine, and have inspired me. The other thing that inspires me is watching the horses graze. I want to give them the best of what they want, and I’d sure like to have more than they need.

Toward that goal, we decided to mow the area to the north of our driveway. Cutting down the weeds rejuvenates the grass that is already there.  I used the brush hog behind the big tractor, and had to navigate around the pine trees planted in the west portion of that area, which made it a bit of a challenge.

I took pictures of the ‘before and after’ view. One of the first things you can see in these images is how the weather changed yesterday. It got chillier as I worked, becoming a dramatically different day over a span of just a few hours.

The other thing to notice is the trail we had that was cut around the border of the field. You can see how green the grass is where it was mowed. That’s what we are after.

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I wish it was as simple as knocking down the weeds to get what we are after, but it’s not. We plan to have this area for grazing, and to keep the big field for cutting hay. If we are to let the horses graze here, we need to get it fenced. How complicated is it to add fence? Now we know. We need to think ahead to where access through a gate, or gates, will be located. We have to establish the most logical perimeter, which won’t necessarily end up being the area that’s cut.

Fencing the area will block our trail. We could move the fence that will contain the grazing area in a bit, to leave space for a trail around the outside, but that can tend to make the northern property border ambiguous. The existing property border has remnants of rusty barbed wire fencing, which we want to replace. If we update the border fence line and  fence the grazing area inside that, we end up with double the fence.

That’s a tough decision for me. I don’t want more fence, I want less fence.

It’s not as simple as just cutting the area to get everything we want, but at least just cutting it will be a pretty simple way to grow grass. That’s a start.