Mow Meister
July 3rd, 2013 · No Comments · Posted in farming
Grass waits for no man
My grass cutting duties just never end.
The foliage is loving all the rain we’ve been having lately. We’re looking more like the Emerald Isles than Upstate New York. But that just means I need to be out early with my scythe, trying to keep up with all this growth.
One area that needs frequent attention is along our electric perimeter fence. Grass and weeds growing on the fence wires tend to draw down the voltage. And not just inside the fence, but outside the perimeter as well. We designed it so that the fence sits about 15 feet off the actual property line, giving us room to get behind it and cut any encroaching weeds and brambles.
What you see in the photo is the alley along the very rearmost portion of the property, a clear shot of about 1,000 feet that I’ve been working on recently with my scythe. It took me about three and a half hours over two days to cut back all of the growth here. I work early in the morning, and come back inside when my clothes are soaked through with sweat.
After I finish outside the fence, I’ll go around the inside–for the second time this season. Already the new growth is high enough I fear it is shorting out the fence.
On the subject of scything, there’s a terrific article in this month’s National Geographic about the culture of haying in Transylvania. Leave it to National Geographic to find room for 10,000 words on how farmers in Transylvania work their fields by hand, using pre-industrial tools like my scythe, wooden hay rakes, and wooden hay forks polished by years of loving use.
Apparently, the Transylvanians, besides giving birth to vampire legends, have also developed the world’s largest vocabulary to describe the many conditions hay can fall under. Their fields also contain what may be the greatest diversity on earth of different grasses, legumes, wildflowers and forbs with which to feed their livestock. As in my own pastures, those plants must be maintained or Mother Nature will re-stake her claim with all sorts of weeds and brambles and brush.
In Transylvania, children from an early age learn the names of dozens of beneficial plants crucial for the life of their pastures and hay. What a contrast to our sorry agriculture here, where the soil is abused with tilling and chemicals to the point where we are constantly battling to hold the weeds back and keep our pastures viable.
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