Most weekends in the summer at Wyldswood are spent mowing. Of our 60-80 acres (no one seems exactly sure what all is out there), roughly 85-90% is grass, sometimes with widely spaced trees that leave lots of room for grass to grow.
It's so much grass, in fact, that this page will only allow a low res view. This is, by the way, what my world looks like without glasses. Peg won't let me get laser eye surgery because, well, it's surgery.
So, how do we keep all this at bay, particularly during a hot, wet summer that seems to draw the grass upward at an inch a day?
The cows aren't as much help as we'd hoped. There are only eleven of them out there these days, and they only have access to maybe a third of the property, which they generally do a lousy job of munching down. Still, at least we don't have to mow the pastures where they hang out, or at least not that often.
The two implements of lawn control at Wyldswood are the tractor and the zero turn mower. Let's start with the tractor:
Peg purchased this gem maybe a dozen years ago. It's air-conditioned, has a kick ass stereo, and generally drives like a car. Of course, most of the attachments disappeared when a prior squatter occupied the farm, but thankfully we were left with the bush hog, a large mowing deck Peg drags around behind the tractor. You've probably seen them on the side of the interstate for years, and never known what they were called. Now you do.
We bush hog (or "brush hog" if you're a Yankee or a Californian) all of the property except where the cows are grazing, and the curtilage around the house and barn. It's basically like mowing the yard, but with a much larger, more unwieldy setup than your Toro mower.
The blog gods won't let me upload a video of me operating our actual bush hog, which was significant because it was the only time Peg's ever let me drive her tractor. It also showed the missing roof panel where the actual owner tore the roof off driving it around in the woods. It's lashed on now with a creative bungie cord arrangement. We've also had to replace a door, because a snake dropped onto the spot where the roof should be and Peg veered hard to force the snake off the tractor, in the process driving a large tree branch through the glass. She's hard on the equipment.
Inside the fence around house, Splinters, barn, and office, we mow with the Gravely zero turn.
It's pretty much like this one. Mowing the whole 5-10 acres (again, we're not sure how much land is inside the fence) can take anywhere from 3-5 hours, depending on how wet and tall it is.
I do in fact get to drive the zero turn, and it is a tonic for the soul. Driving a zero turn is a lot like flying a plane, in that the two maneuvering handles are constantly in motion, constantly requiring minor course corrections to stay on your row, and fancy pivoting to get around trees and buildings. Taking a hand off one handle to fumble into the cup holder and take a sip of beer requires slowing to a near stop, and so the beer tends to get warm and fill with mowing silt before I finish it.
The best part about the zero turn, again sort of like flying, is that you have to stay constantly in the moment to drive the thing, which crowds out worries about Covid and law practice and the steady drumbeat of political insanity. It's just me, a gritty and warm Sam Adams Lager, and the zero turn, creating a beautiful manicured space, an island of order and tranquility in a crazy time. When Peg slides out on a weekday morning to drive it while I'm in the office on a Zoom deposition or immersed in a writing project, I feel a little envy, even though she has to cover up like a Bedouin to avoid burning to a crisp in the summer sun.
I'm told the grass should grow a little less quickly by this time next month, and we'll be done mowing at Wyldswood for the winter by Hallloween. Although that feels like a welcome reprieve today, my guess is I'll be missing it by the first of the year. As the need to mow recedes, a laundry list of repairs and improvements looms on the horizon, in this never-ending cycle of farm life.
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