On Yard Maintenance …
Our property is a little over 10 acres and mostly wooded. Last summer we cleared about three acres [YouTube] in order to have a garden and to allow sunlight to shine on our driveway—lest we should slide down the icy steep slope.
Despite the size of our plot, we only mow a small portion of the yard immediately surrounding the house. Notice I used the word “yard” and not the term “grass,” and certainly not “lawn.” From a distance our yard may look like grass, but it is mostly made up of many grass-like plants. Not being a big fan of the work (or chemicals) involved in maintaining a real lawn, we are happy to let the yard go au natural. However, not so much that the house is obscured by the inevitable not-really-grass forest.
It doesn’t hurt that the “lawn” mower is incapable of the stamina required to mow more than we currently do. The mower we have was a housewarming gift from my father, leftover from our house in Maryland where we had a postage-sized plot which could easily be mowed in under 30 minutes on one charge.
Yes, charge.
Our mower is a cordless rechargeable, and—I assume—quite unusual in rural Vermont, even with a large hippie population fighting global warming. It suits our needs and has enough power to cut as much not-really-grass as we need.
In fact, the mower’s limited power has helped inspire the landscaping surrounding the house. Well, that, and I got a late start on the mowing this year due to the rainier spring. The result was that the areas I left to grow on their own produced nice patches of wild flowers. We still have to keep on the alert for aggressive and invasive species—and definitely thistle.
The purple thistle is one of my favorite flowers. Unfortunately I’m constantly eradicating them. As much as I like looking at them I really don’t like stepping on them or brushing up against them. A love hate relationship…