Posts Tagged ‘mowing fields’
Sunrise Ride
Watching 13 stages of the Tour de France provided ample inspiration for me on a beautiful morning bike ride over the hills and past the cornfields of my neighborhood in the driftless region of Wisconsin.
The low angle of the sun created shadows that proved irresistible for me to pull out my phone while riding, which I am VERY reluctant to do. The odds of my dropping it are extremely high, but I got away with it this time.
I was probably feeling a little cockier than usual because I had chosen to ride in the opposite direction of one of my usual routes, which put me immediately into several big climbs, and I found myself pulling it off without feeling noticeably abused. Maybe all the miles I trod back and forth on our hilly property are keeping my cycling abilities fit.
Since I had failed to test my bike since I picked it up from the shop almost a month ago, I was also energized to find my pedaling was as quiet as ever. It would have been a massive disappointment had it been otherwise.
By riding first thing in the morning, so that I could get back to feed the horses at their usual hour, I still had the whole day open to take on whatever chore I wanted. The one that seemed to offer the greatest return for the effort involved cranking up the diesel New Holland with the brush cutter to knock down the uncut areas along the edges and corners of the hay field that the hay mower couldn’t negotiate.
That is an exercise that takes only a few minutes, but it serves as a precursor to moving into the back pasture to trim the weeds before they go to seed, which takes more than three hours.
After giving my legs an early workout, the extended tractor time may appear to be a more forgiving endeavor, but hour upon hour of pushing the clutch pedal, then the brake pedal, while spinning the steering wheel around and back on every turn, was almost as exhausting as conquering Pierce County hills on my bike.
I had closed the gates to keep the horses out of the back pasture, but they were free to graze in the recently mowed hay field. I always love seeing them out on the grass instead of standing in a stupor under the overhang, which tends to be their preference much of the time. That’s Mia all by herself in the image.
This morning, I’m riding bikes vicariously through the pros racing Stage 14 of the Tour. They are a great inspiration.
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Fields Cut
Finally. When it rains so frequently that you have to wait until the second week of July to cut hay, it makes for some tall growth. We have been anxious to have our fields cut because we don’t want the weeds to mature enough to go to seed.
When I came out to see how the cutting was going, I found the horses milling about along the paddock fence. They appeared to be taking an interest in the goings on.
I spotted the red Jolly Ball that was missing from the paddocks. The mower rolled over it and left a little of the orb visible. We’ve rarely seen the horses play with it so it was a surprise to imagine they had carried it out into the field. Either they did or some other animal suddenly took an interest in it.
We left the double gates open to the back pasture in hopes the farmer might cut and bale that field too, but he didn’t take the bait. Last year they told me that area was too small for his rig to be efficient. When he finished cutting the hay field yesterday and drove away without hesitation, I knew I would need to cut that back pasture myself.
So, I did. As soon as he left I hooked the brush cutter mower to the Ford New Holland diesel tractor and knocked down everything the other guy skipped. Rolling through the tall grass for a few hours produced a lot of grass seed on the tractor and me.
I sure hope more grass seeds than weed seeds will take root out there next year.
It feels pretty good to have both fields cut on the same day. I hadn’t really planned on immediately cutting the back pasture after confirming my suspicion it wouldn’t be included in the hay baling project. Somehow, I just acted in the moment. How unlike me.
Having it all done now is very rewarding. In a couple of days, we will be able to allow the horses to graze the back pasture again.
That will make all of us happy.
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Weed Control
We had two primary goals in mind when we plotted a strategy for what we would focus our efforts on yesterday. The first was something I hoped wouldn’t take a lot of time to accomplish. There were two tipped trees with upper branches hung up in surrounding trees. Using knowledge gained by watching the tree professionals who worked for us last spring bring down similar “widow-makers,” I readied our chainsaw and headed into the woods.
With my mind focused solely on the task at hand, I failed to take any pictures of the leaning trees or the keen aftermath of my success in bringing them down. The big poplar near the road took a lot more time than I anticipated. After five successive cuts ultimately eliminating the lower trunk that had been leaning at a 45° angle, the remaining upper portion of branches stood vertical and was still tangled in the branches of surrounding trees.
I needed to go back to the shop to get our pole chainsaw to finish the job. By the time we finished cutting trees, the day was more than half over.
The second goal was to get the hay field mowed, a job that I knew would take more hours than I really wanted to give to the task.
The growth wasn’t excessively tall but there were plenty of weeds maturing and we didn’t want them going to seed. I finally finished around 7:00 p.m. after almost 5 hours out on the tractor. At one point, feeling like it was taking too long, I tried running in a higher gear to speed up progress. The bouncing and jostling were a bit too much and the high gear made backing up hard to manage. All I could do was plod along at a steady pace in the lower gear and keep making passes until the entire field was finally cut.
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Cyndie took pictures as I headed toward the gate upon finishing. For a relatively small field, it sure is bigger than it seems.
The horses were relegated to the unmowed back pasture for the day. They are doing a fair job of grazing the good grass in that pasture but there are enough unwanted weeds in that field that it will need to be mowed soon as well.
In a day or two, they will be allowed back on the grass in the hay field. Then I will spend the better part of a day mowing the back pasture.
As much as I dread doing the mowing, the fields sure look great with all the weeds knocked down. For now, in our minds, mowing is our preferred method over chemical applications for reducing weeds that are toxic to horses. It may not be as effective, but mowing doesn’t leave a weed killer residue in our soil.
I can live with giving two afternoons of my precious time to bouncing along on the diesel tractor a couple of times a summer.
It’s easier than chainsawing widow-makers!
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Relative Something 