After her temper tantrum of the day before, throwing lightning bolts and growling with thunder, Nature did an abrupt about-face and showed her sunny disposition yesterday and I was able to get out to the west field to mow in the afternoon. The grass and weeds (mostly weeds!) had shot up over a foot in an amazingly short time. This is most apparent under the wisteria vine to the left in the back corner of the garden. The roof of the house is just over the hill.
The goat pen is straight ahead. While putt-putting along their fence line, the girls followed, hoping that some of that sweet-smelling stuff would get thrown their way. As I moved in ever-decreasing concentric circles, they gave up and settled for the grass on their side of the fence. It takes a lot longer to mow the field when the grass gets so high. In order not to strain the poor old tractor (the little one), it's necessary to take baby bites, a half or sometimes even just a quarter of the blade space on each pass. The field was liberally sprinkled with blue lupine and I always feel awful when I have to cut that down. With no power steering and less-than-adequate springs, riding the mower is like riding a horse with a stiff-legged trot for a couple of hours...hard on the butt. I'd planned to get all of the yards cut down, but after finishing this field, pleasant as it was to be outside on a glorious day, I called it quits and went in for a beer break. It was a good day.
