That'll Larn 'Im

Early in August Saint H casually remarked that he'd had part of a bag of fertilizer laying around, so he'd sprinkled it on the "lawn." Keep in mind that we don't really have a lawn; we've sown a mix of pasture and grass around the house. There's a lot of area to cover and we're not really groomed-grass types. I thought to myself, "Hmmm," but put it out of mind.

Then the rains came. The "lawn" grew, dark and luxuriant, almost overnight. It grew through the heat wave. It grew when it cooled. It grew so fast that it was quickly beyond capacity of our electric lawn mower. So today we swapped the rotary mower onto Emma in place of the flail mower, and I set out to knock the "lawn" down.

Emma's hydraulics are hinky and she's been rolled at some point so one of the 3-point linkarms is bent. The rotary mower in response levitates out of setting on uneven ground (that's all we have here) and the cut is crooked, since one point is higher than the other. I cut the "lawn" from about 8" high to what we hoped might be about 4" high. Then Saint H cleaned up with the electric mower for a good 2" level cut all around.

Yesterday we mowed rough stuff out of about 2/3 of the pasture - I took a couple of rounds on Emma to get used to the flail mower. Then I man-handled the electric mower for 3 passes across the back "lawn" before I conceded that it was too much for the mower to handle (tripping a circuit breaker in the process as proof). I pulled weeds, watered and picked some of the never-ending yellow pear tomatoes in the garden. I washed one of my wool kitchen throw rugs outside with broom and pail. Today I raked thatch out of part of the "lawn", helped swap out the mowers, and mowed.

For two years I was two fatigued and too run-down to do much physical work around here. I exult in being able, finally, to get out and do things again. But next year, I plan on having sheep to mow the "lawn"!