Posts Tagged ‘raking’
Finishing Touch
Before the monsoon rains began pouring down on us yesterday, I hustled down to finish raking the path where I had done the trimming on Tuesday. I took a couple of before-and-after photos…
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Late last year, I came up with a plan to leave the cuttings lying beneath the fence wires to smother or stunt future growth there. This will be a second chance to test my idea. The first try wasn’t very conclusive, so I’m hoping this will give me a bigger sample size from which to judge the ultimate effectiveness.
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The green grasses and a multitude of other random plant life common in our region are pretty persistent about sprouting anywhere and everywhere, whether welcomed or not. It would be a sweet victory if simply leaving a mat of cuttings proved successful in keeping our fences from repeatedly getting swallowed by tall growth.
While yesterday’s rain was pouring down, I busied myself with woodworking projects beneath the roof over the shop entrance. When I finished and was closing the door after putting everything away, I found a milk snake slithering along the rocks of the lower portion of the wall. It stopped when it noticed me, putting us at a standoff.
I closed the door, hoping it wasn’t planning on going inside to get out of the minor flooding going on around the building. Then the snake began poking its head into the mortar between the rocks, as if it was looking for an opening. Apparently, it had overshot its door, because when it folded around to poke farther back along its body, it found a tiny hole I couldn’t see and swiftly disappeared inside.
I immediately opened the door to see if it had just slithered right into the shop, which had me thinking I was never going to work in there ever again. I didn’t see any sign of the snake, so I guess it lives in the walls.
That wasn’t the least bit comforting. I can only hope it is controlling the mouse population most likely responsible for making those little holes that provided access to the structure in the first place.
I love the outdoors and wildlife, but I really wish I didn’t have to share space with mice and snakes.
I’d consider plugging that hole I saw the snake slide through if I didn’t believe it would force the snake to eventually come out of the wall into the shop.
I am not a fan of snakes. Not even a little bit.
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Couldn’t Finish
With a threat of rain today and tomorrow, yesterday Cyndie hinted I should work on outdoor projects while the weather allowed. Fair enough. Since there are practically endless opportunities to trim back overgrowth along our trails and fence lines, I decided to start on the place that needed the biggest effort.
Using the electric string trimmer, I worked my way down the fence line. I always feel so good about how it looks when the fence wires are all free and clear from being swallowed by tall grass, weeds, and vines.
Next, I used the hedge trimmer to clean up the overhanging branches sticking out in the pathway.
When all the sliced up trimmings cover the ground, the pathway deserves to be raked clean. That becomes the finishing touch of a job well done and provides the ultimate visual reward for an end result.
It’s too bad I couldn’t finish in the time available. I left the rake down there in hopes one of us could, at the very least, make a quick sweep to clear the bulk of the debris the next time we are walking that trail.
We had to wrap up chores early yesterday for a trip to the Cities to celebrate some June birthdays with a dinner out at Ciao Bella in Bloomington with our kids, Cyndie’s mom, and her brother, Steve. What a fine batch of menu choices we were served by first-class staff.
Maybe I was extra hungry after skipping lunch to do that trimming, but every bite of my entrée and the several others I sampled tasted incredibly delicious. It’s as if they must have pushed past the limits of healthy eating by adding copious amounts of the good stuff, like butter, and salty seasonings. Even the starter loaves of fresh-baked bread tasted like the best bread I had eaten in a long time.
It made the packed parking lot and too loud ambiance worth overlooking. For a normal Tuesday night, the place was jumping! Good thing we had a reservation. Since we had picked up Cyndie’s mom, we also had a card allowing us to park in one of the handicap spots near the front door.
My meal was so good that I had no worries about not being able to finish that part of my day.
Maybe I’ll use that fuel to get out and do the unfinished trail raking between rain showers today.
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Days Long
Once again, we find ourselves engaged in a project that is much larger than two people can complete in a short amount of time. Cyndie and I could work on the newly graded dirt along our driveway from sun up to sun down if our sore feet and blistering hands were equal to the task and it would still take many days.
Since the project isn’t truly completed until there is grass growing in all this new clay/dirt combination, it will be months if not a year to reach the ultimate goal. Luckily, getting beyond this first raking and grading effort will be a welcome milestone. We’ll no longer feel driven to work intensively at every possible moment.
As always, it is a labor of love. It looks so much better already and will be a great improvement for mowing and plowing along the driveway. I’m looking forward to doing both on the improved slopes.
To accommodate allowing Asher to loiter off-leash, Cyndie and I split up and she stayed with him to work out-of-sight from the road and I took a second wheelbarrow down to the road to rake, shovel, and scrape.
Removing the large chunks of clay and the occasional big rocks leaves the task of heavy raking to pull dirt up from the bottom and smooth out the slope as evenly as possible. I find the result highly visually rewarding.
It actually inspires me to want to get right back out there to pick up where I left off except for the one-sided toll it takes on my body. I can’t master the art of raking left-handed. Hours of pulling only one way creates a stress on my body that is decidedly lopsided.
Maybe I’ll do some mowing today on the zero-turn mower. I need to steer that with both hands equally.
It’s another labor of love, don’t you know.
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Delay Gratification
As our snow cover recedes and the ground becomes visible again, the urge to nurse our landscape back to life grows strong. I want to rake and trim and spruce up the most-viewed spaces as soon as I can. However, my “want to” and “can” don’t line up with the timing of when we should begin imposing our will on the land.
Some insects overwinter beneath the leaf litter on the ground and they don’t all pop out at the first exposure to direct sunshine. I can’t just decide to work on the lawn instead because grass areas should be allowed to thaw completely and begin to turn green before attacking them with a rake.
Then there’s the challenge of “No Mow May.” That’s the campaign to help fight the decline of wildflowers and pollinating insects by waiting until June to mow grassy areas.
I’ll never make it until June without mowing our “lawn” areas. Grass grows way too fast here for that level of intentional neglect. In our favor is the expanse of natural areas where we never mow and the acres of pasture that are only mowed occasionally. My mowing of the comparably small fraction of grass lawn that I do cut won’t shortchange the pollinators in our neighborhood.
This spring my urge to mow is even greater than ever –and if you know me, the urge to mow is very uncharacteristic. Next week I am anticipating the delivery of a new battery-powered zero-turn mower. In the realm of delaying gratification, this purchase was made weeks ago and was subject to availability. I purchased from an online company but discovered their products have started becoming available from retail stores.
When I checked the closest Tractor Supply Company in Prescott, WI, one of the staff scoffed that I’d be lucky to find one. His co-worker jumped on their computer and looked it up to see what their system indicated for availability. To everyone’s surprise, she exclaimed, “There’s one coming into our store on our mid-March delivery!”
Neither of them was aware of any reason they would be receiving delivery of this lawn tractor. I asked if it was already committed to a customer.
It wasn’t.
I couldn’t help having a flashback to last year when I was looking for a specific Trek e-bike and eventually learned there was only one in the country that was my size and it was available in a Minneapolis store.
My goal in choosing to buy the tractor from a retail store was to avoid the substantial shipping fee online. There was just one hitch (pun intended) with that plan. I don’t have a trailer, nor even a trailer hitch on my car to pick up my new toy from Tractor Supply. Ultimately, I was able to order delivery from the company that Tractor Supply contracts with and arrange delivery for next week at a $50 discount from the online delivery fee.
After a few more days of delay, I’m hoping to be appropriately gratified.
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Sand Play
We had fun in our giant sand box yesterday. The round pen has not had consistent attention this summer which has given the grass a chance to become a little too prominent a feature. The horses get confused over whether they are supposed to be exercising or eating.
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The Grizzly and our snazzy ABI grader do a good job of converting the appearance from a look of neglect to one of groomed and ready to go.
Separating the uprooted grass bundles from the sand takes a little more manual effort. It’s the kind of activity that draws the attention of the chickens, who assume we must be scratching for insects they can eat. Cyndie tried to explain to them that the roots were not worms, but they just stared at her like a bunch of chickens, don’t you know.
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.gaz
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The gazebo is ready. The round pen is ready. We might as well hold some workshops, eh?
Might as well.
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Short Note
No time for blathering on this morning… Finished with breakfast, we are hustling down to rake and remove piles of grass from the labyrinth before rain arrives today.
While we work, you enjoy this image of berries and flowers that Cyndie captured.
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Long Day
The horses received a good amount of attention yesterday. We were able to get into the paddocks with the ATV and do some raking. What a difference a day makes. Compare this image with the one in my previous post: —————>
There are still some spots that are too muddy to drive through. I figured that out by forging ahead into one of the worst sections and almost not making it through. After that I became more selective about which areas got raked.
I started hauling out a portion of the big pile of manure and hay that was created when we used the diesel New Holland tractor to do some clean up in late winter. A few pitch forks into that pile and I hit snow! That slowed my progress a bit. It sure will be nice when that corner is finally cleared again.
While I was tending to that, Cyndie was hard at work cleaning the automatic waterer. Delilah was hanging around offering her version of “help.” When I checked on progress, Cyndie said it was going fine, except that Delilah had made off with the rubber stopper that plugs the drain. We did our best to search the muddy hoof prints in the vicinity, hoping she dropped it nearby, but the black plug was not easy to see. There was plenty of pleading with the dog, begging her to use her nose to lead us to it, but she didn’t seem very willing to zoom in on that one task.
It made for a harrowing temporary interruption to desired progress, but in time Cyndie and Delilah came up with it and that chore was completed.
The horses received some brushing, and were given a little extra time for grazing the fresh grass surrounding the round pen. I hope they don’t think their shenanigans with the water trough and hose won them all this good attention yesterday. I don’t like rewarding bad behavior.
I am pretty confident that the blame for that stunt with the hose is not deserved by all four horses. Legacy is the prime suspect whenever it comes to grabbing things with the mouth. He is incorrigible.
After we finished with activities in the paddocks, we headed down to the labyrinth. The grass is growing incredibly fast down there, and it needs to be mowed about twice a week to keep it in check. While Cyndie pulled weeds and tended to the plants, I pushed the mower all the way to the center, and back out again, stopping to take a picture when I reached the boulders.
To make it truly a full day of chores, after I had showered and eaten dinner, I realized I had forgotten to get the pond waterfall back in operation, and headed out to tackle that. It was something I had been meaning to take care of for weeks and just wasn’t getting it done. I didn’t want it to linger one more day.
Luckily, the filter installation went well enough that I finished before sunset, however, at that point in our very long and exhausting day, I ended up using about a week’s-worth of cursing to get things flowing without a leak.
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Relative Something 