Oh, My Achin’ Butt
June 6th, 2013 · 4 Comments · Posted in farming
Foliage must be cleared from fence line
Little did I suspect when I signed up for this farm gig that my most important tool would be a scythe. From a time-warped, 18th Century perspective, this makes sense, since most of our 30 acres consists of grass.
This time of year, grass grows fast and tall, hellbent on making seed. In addition to attacking milkweed in our upper pasture, I recently scythed the entire length of our electrified perimeter fence. Foliage growing on the wires tends to draw down the power. I reckon I spent six hours trimming 4,200 feet of fence, or about 80 percent of a mile. Swinging the scythe side-to-side for hours at a time definitely leaves its impression on the old gluteus maximus.
Confronting 10 acres of milkweed-infested pasture armed with a hand implement, I sometimes feel like the Gerard Depardieu character in the movie Jean de Florette. It’s about a hunchback accountant who inherits a dusty scrap of land in southern France with the harebrained idea of raising rabbits. His efforts elicit bemused chuckles–sometimes concern–from the hard-bitten towns folk. Indomitably persistent in the face of drought, he walks miles to fetch water to keep his little enterprise alive, all the while unaware–thanks to a scheming neighbor–that a spring exists on his property.
A sense of fatal desperation overhangs the movie. I hope I am not giving too much away by saying that the hunchback meets an untimely end, but justice ultimately prevails as far as the evil neighbor is concerned.
Likewise, I’m sure my neighbors already have concluded I’m a bit peculiar. While I was swinging away at the milkweed recently, a giant machine drove onto an adjacent property and proceeded to mow about 30 acres of grass in a matter of a few hours. It sounded like a huge saw mill had moved in next door–or perhaps a 747 revving its engines in preparation for takeoff. And there was me, swinging away but making no more ruckus than the sound of carbon steel slicing through green stems.
Likewise, a neighbor across the road recently was buzzing around his property on an old tractor, cutting his lawn. One morning he spotted me scything under the fence line and stopped his work long enough to remark, “They make a spray for that.”
Sure enough, on my way to the local recycling center I noticed a number of other fences where the farmers had applied Roundup or some other herbicide along the fence to kill the offending foliage. The streak of telltale brown where grass had once attempted to mount the fence was unmistakable. Around here, chemicals run through a farmer’s veins.
Machines and chemicals: They wouldn’t think of doing it any other way. What a pain in the butt that would be.
🙂 You are going to be so toned!
In our little plot (.6 acre) I refuse to use chemicals or a strimmer, although we do have a petrol lawn mower.
The diversity of wildlife – especially insects – is amazing compared with the barren chemical sprayed garden we bought 14 years ago.
Just focus on what an amazing environment you are creating.
I don’t know about being “toned,” Celia. All this physical work just makes me want to eat more. We are definitely on a learning curve. This season is not about growing food, but learning what works for us here. (I do wish I had about 30 more sheep to do all this mowing. Our eight ewes don’t eat nearly enough grass!)
Hey Ed,
Some people put down old news paper we it down and then cover it with much or gravel to surpress weeds from growing in flower gardens. I know it is a lot of area we are talking about but It might last a few years once you have it in place.
Darren, I think the solution we are going to deploy is to put livestock on those pastures. They will eat the milkweed shoots should they appear and otherwise trample on the weeds and improve the soil to a point where the weeds will be crowded out by grasses. That’s the theory.