Posts Tagged ‘string trimmer’
Fool’s Errand
Backstory: My initial lesson in how water flows across our land was after the first winter we moved here, in the spring of 2013. It is a powerful thing to witness large amounts of water begin to flow toward the next lowest spot on the way to the nearest river.
When the big melt started that spring, snow had filled the main drainage swale along the southern border of our property. It was impossible to see the water moving beneath the snow cover, but when the flow became too much for the situation, that snow became a dam. The water backed up until it spilled over the bank and flooded our neighbor’s farm field.
It became obvious to me that neglected growth had begun to clog up the western end of the drainage path. That caused the snow to jam against the little trees and thick underbrush until it formed the blockage.
Every year since, I have endeavored to keep our span of the drainage path clear before snow season starts.
Nowadays, most of the flow happens during heavy downbursts of rainstorms, but just in case a big snowfall might still happen, I continue to clear growth from the center of the swale.
Yesterday, I used the string trimmer to carve a path down the middle, instead of the brush cutter pulled by the big diesel tractor. The big tractor flattens much of the tall grass, and then the brush cutter just passes over that without actually mowing it.
Clearing the path right down the center is the fool’s errand, because the flow of water doesn’t care that I want it to stay in the middle and follow the lane I have carved. Runoff carries a lot of organic debris and silt. Anywhere the flow slows, floating material settles out, creating a high spot, so the water then moves around it. Water carves its own path.
So the actual washed-out gully that forms zigs and zags on and off the path I cut. As long as the tall outer sides of the swale are intact, the ultimate purpose is achieved. My choosing to cut the path down the middle is meant to guarantee there will be nothing to collect snow if that situation were to occur again.
Another fool’s errand happens indoors with our dog, Asher. When we picked him up from his foster home, it was obvious he LOVED being on their furniture. We weren’t sure about giving his large 90-pound frame free range on our furniture, but he won us over to a partial degree. Our bed is off limits, and he learned that right away. Cyndie bought covers for the couch and one chair in the living room.
Lately, he’s decided he’d rather choose the tight confines of an uncovered chair.
We can’t resist his sweet little face and don’t really care –his hair is everywhere, regardless– but it is comical that he seems to flow wherever the spirit moves him, regardless of our attempts to guide him.
Seems a little like the water in our drainage swale.
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Clearing Trails
The list of tasks related to fighting back the natural growth constantly threatening to overgrow our property is getting shorter and shorter. On Sunday morning, I took the chainsaw into the woods to cut up the trees and limbs that had fallen across several of our trails. Yesterday, the tool of choice was the STIHL string trimmer to clean up the paths, some of which we haven’t been walking since they’d gotten too overgrown.
Soon after I’d made it a little way down one of those pathways we hadn’t been on, I discovered another downed tree we hadn’t noticed that would require the chainsaw.
Before
After
The two plants most often cluttering the pathways are Virginia Creeper vines and wild raspberry shoots. Less often, there will be clumps of whispy grasses that tend to resist the spinning trimmer line. Shredding the growth at ground level in the woods with the string trimmer tends to kick up a lot of moist dirt that sticks all over me.
It became a toss-up between the splattering dirt or the mosquitoes as to which was most irritating.
There are two versions of trails through our woods. One is wide enough to accommodate an ATV, which is a valuable thing to be able to do sometimes. The majority of the wide trails were already in existence when we bought the property.
The rest of the trails have intentionally been left narrow to limit them to foot traffic. We have created almost all of these pathways.
This was only the second time this growing season that I have used the trimmer to mow down the trails through the woods. I’m hoping it won’t need to happen again, as growth should begin to slow soon now that we are in the dog days of summer.
There remains some branch pruning to be done to reach my ideal of perfectly well-tended trails, but we are darn close to completing the maintenance of our walkways in the woods.
Forest bathing can soon commence without obstructions.
I suspect I don’t reap the same rewards of walking through the woods when I am wielding a loud and smelly small gas engine and wreaking havoc on a wide variety of growing plant life.
I’ll just have to take follow-up walks on all the trails after I am done, which is easy to make time for since they become somewhat irresistible when they are so thoroughly groomed.
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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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Sisyphean Endeavors
Happy World Labyrinth Day! Even though I had mowed the center of the labyrinth pathway with the push mower, a lot of tall grass remained around the rocks where the mower blade couldn’t reach. Ever the perfectionist, I was unable to resist the urge to do a little touch-up with our battery-powered string trimmer. The more I worked, the more I noticed additional areas deserving a trim.
The next thing you know, I had walked back to the shop to get the gas-powered string trimmer in order to trim around both sides of the rock barriers for the entire length of the circuitous path. This is not a zero-time exercise. While I was toiling away on this struggle to get the spinning plastic line into every nook and cranny without constantly breaking off because of impact with rocks, it occurred to me how Sisyphean the activity is.
My life is a Sisyphean effort to control nature’s endless tendencies. The rock always rolls back down whenever it nears the top.
When the sun shines in the spring, every growing thing takes off at breakneck speed toward achieving maximum potential. When I try to control where we want some things to grow or where we don’t want other plants to grow at all, the universe laughs.
It never ceases to amaze me that blades of grass can push up through the asphalt along the edges of our driveway.
The other winless battle I wage is against the flow of water. Try as I might, I cannot convince water to only flow where I want it to go. Water will not flow uphill; that seems easy enough. However, water will gladly choose any alternate route that offers less resistance to a lower elevation at a given moment.
Every spring, I try to shape the ground to guide snowmelt or rain runoff away from the paddock gates. Every spring, that effort ultimately fails.
At least I get to enjoy how things look for the brief day or two after I’ve rolled the symbolic rock most of the way up the hill.
Cyndie has prepared a few treats for refreshments, and I intend to light a small campfire by the labyrinth for our “Walk as One at 1:00” today. Feel free to send your own beams of peace pondering into the universal consciousness wherever you find yourself at 1:00 p.m. in your local time zone. The wave has already started traveling around the globe on this first Saturday in May in the year 2025.
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Like Home
My project yesterday morning felt a little like being at home. We enjoyed a visit from Julian up here at the lake for a few days and he brought along a present that I’ve been looking forward to. He got us a new battery-powered string trimmer to add to our gas-powered Stihl model trimmer resources. I’m hoping this will give Cyndie a quick and easy option for certain jobs since she is beginning to find it difficult to pull-start the Stihl engine.
There was a perfect testing ground for the new trimmer in our mini-labyrinth in the woods up here at Wildwood.
I bundled up in long pants and a shirt with long sleeves to do battle in the mosquito’s territory. Knocking down flurries of leafy green ground cover and ferns along the pathway unleashed a crowd of mosquitos that quickly figured out my head was rather defenseless. I got a chance to practice using the trimmer one-handed while swatting away bugs with my other hand.
About three-quarters of the way to the center, the mosquitos started to figure out they could fit their proboscis through the fabric of my shirt. It got to the point that I didn’t know if the bites I was feeling were a residual itch or a new, active bite in progress. Flailing and swatting becomes a full-time effort whether or not bugs are present when it reaches a certain point.
I was close enough to finishing that I forged ahead regardless of the feasting insects so the labyrinth pathway could be re-established to completion. Now it is possible to travel the route without disturbing underbrush where mosquitos rest during the day.
As soon as I got out of the woods, I made a beeline for the lake to soak in the water and quell the sensory overload of real and phantom itchiness.
Up until that point, it was feeling a little like being home while working with the trimmer, but the one thing we definitely don’t have at home is the opportunity to jump into this refreshing lake after completing hot and sweaty projects.
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Reclaiming Fences
In addition to regaining the upper hand on our trails, I think I mentioned that I’ve worked some fence lines, too. Yesterday, after I got home from a successful morning of shopping, I strapped on the Stihl power trimmer and headed to the far side of the hay field to make the fence visible again.
I burned through two tanks of gas but probably haven’t reached the halfway point yet. It’s taking so long because we didn’t get after this earlier and now the grass is so tall and thick it takes twice as long to knock it all down.
The days to departure for my week of biking and tenting are dwindling faster than the amount of work I’d like to complete around the property can be achieved. I’m splitting my attention between tending to things outdoors and gathering my gear in the house to pack. Half attention to each goal tends to result in half-sized results for both.
It is what it is. In the end, time always wins. I’ll get done what I can and pack up and go when it is time to go.
As of last night, my weather app showed this forecast for Saturday through Thursday: an alternating percentage chance of storms or rain each day, 50%; 40%; 50%; 40%; 50%; 40%.
Oh, joy.
Like I’ve said, that’s why we call it adventure!
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Reclaiming Trails
Counting down the days until my next Tour of Minnesota adventure, I popped out for a 2-hour loop on local roads for a 25-mile bike ride yesterday morning. Picking a route with roads I’ve not ridden before, I found myself climbing a curvy road that rose skyward to such a degree I needed to walk my bike up a good portion of it. This had me wondering if I’d made a mistake in doing my Monday morning exercise routine before asking my legs to work so hard on a ride.
The highlight of this ride was discovering an old man seated on his walker on the side of the road a long way from any buildings. What caught my eye at first was a couple of fine-looking cats that seemed out of place in the middle of nowhere. As the road I was on ended at this crossroad, my mind was contemplating which direction I wanted to turn when I finally noticed Mr. Meyer facing to my left, looking oblivious to my arrival.
I offered a greeting and rolled up beside him to chat. The cats were his and followed him on his walks. He told me he was 93 and this was the spot where he turns around after resting for a spell. We had a wonderful visit until both of us felt a need to get moving again before stiffening up.
Limiting myself to just two hours of riding got me home in time to join Cyndie in tackling a few chores on the property. First, I pulled out the chainsaw and we removed recently tipped trees that were leaning precariously across two different trails. From there, I switched to the power trimmer to whack a trail from the jungle of overgrowth taking over while Cyndie used our ratcheted lopper to cut back encroaching trees and branches.
It is very rewarding to reclaim space from the relentless growth that overtakes our trails this time of year. It seems to get easier each time since what needs cutting is all new growth, not well-established thick-stemmed plants that foil the string trimmer.
I made my way through two tanks of gas in the trimmer, moving on to work along the back pasture fence line and around the footbridge over the drainage ditch before going as far as I could up one of the narrow internal trails.
We’ve barely covered a fraction of the trimming that needs to be done so this project will be ongoing for multiple days. We’d like to get all the fence lines cleared because the guy who cuts and bales our hay field is planning to come as soon as he gets all his own fields tended. It makes it easier for him to cut close if the fence is clearly visible.
That was plenty of exercise for one day. I may take advantage of the predicted rain due this morning to do a little shopping before departing for the Tour on Saturday. It’s time to pull out all my camping gear and take inventory. I haven’t used any of it since last year’s Tour. Hope I remember where I put everything.
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Finding Alternatives
I’m not making plans as much as I am reacting to the situations we are dealing with in terms of maintaining our property during the season of late spring soakings. What can I tackle between storms and accomplish while almost every area is under standing water or soft as a soaked sponge?
I’m feeling rather smug about the success I achieved yesterday in addressing multiple tasks after starting the morning with a brief bike ride. Too often, I try to get some things done at home in order to justify going riding but then I just tire myself out and never get to the bike.
This time, I put biking first and promised myself to keep it short. Never happy trying to decide on a route, I decided to focus on riding for only one hour. This ended up making my choices for roads simpler.
A basic rectangle unfolded nicely for me and I turned off my tracking app as the clock reached 1.0 hours just as I returned to the shop doorway.
Since it was still before lunchtime, I strapped on the string trimmer and worked through a tank of gas cleaning up edges and some areas too wet to roll wheels through. Even if the main expanses of lawn grass start to get long and unruly, having the edges nicely cropped does an amazing job of giving the place a well-kept appearance.
The most important reason for me isn’t that others might notice, it’s because I see it every day and am much happier seeing it look its best. I am rewarded each time I pass.
After a break for a sandwich, I was sent to River Falls to pick up Cyndie’s grocery order for the week. That allowed me a chance to finally stop by the hardware store and buy more stock of shear bolts since I used up the final spare the last time we were using the wood chipper.
There was just enough time left in the afternoon to run the push mower through the labyrinth. I had to give in and roll wheels through some standing water down there, but it was important to avoid falling behind again after Cyndie put in a heroic effort with the string trimmer last week to bring it back from being close to out of control.
We almost made it through an entire period of daylight without additional rainfall after a mean-looking storm missed us just to the north while I was on the grocery run. The dark clouds around dinnertime didn’t miss, however, and wetness was topped off anew.
The winds yesterday afternoon were frightening at times. On my drive home from River Falls, a branch struck my windshield with a sharp SLAP! against the glass but didn’t cause any damage. Anything not tied down was getting blown for a tumble. I was happy to get home and find only small branches littering our driveway.
Before hitting the shower, I ran through my planking and stretching routine and am beginning to feel like I’m making good progress toward getting back to where I was before getting sick and suffering from that bulging disc.
I don’t blame me for feeling smug.
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June Fourth
What makes June Fourth so special? It’s Cyndie’s birthday!! We are not old or anything, compared to everyone older than us, but when you qualify for Medicare in the U.S., it suddenly feels like you are older than ever. Well, older than you’ve ever been before.
It feels wrong to be doing anything other than celebrating my lovely wife today but there are weeds to be cut, you know. We are meeting Cyndie’s mom and our kids for brunch, but after that, it’s back to the battle against allowing weeds to go to seed.
I don’t know how many versions of this photo I have posted over the last ten years, but it’s a view that truly captures my experience for hours on end.
I worked the string trimmer along the fence line, around the round pen, and along the deep washouts of the drainage swale. I used the Greenworks riding mower to knock down weeds in the round pen and along the inside of the fence line. Finally, I pulled the brush cutter behind the diesel tractor to cut the back pasture. Among the multiple weeds battling for dominance against grasses in the field, thistle is the one we are keeping at bay by mowing.
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In the background of the photo with the cleanly trimmed fence line, you can spot the little maple tree that is in the center of the labyrinth.
This morning we opened the gate to the back pasture, giving the horses access to all that cut grass. They took little notice after finishing the feed in their pans and lolled around near the fans under the overhang. It’s not uncomfortably hot yet this early in the day, but the humidity is noticeable and those big-body mares know the heat will build faster by the minute.
I expect we’ll find them out there soon enough. They have a good sense about the opening of gates around their confines.
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Relative Something 