Mowing...

Sounds like a simple enough task.

This week we need to mow the back field.

Well, the back field is about four tenths of a mile long, and a couple hundred feet wide at the narrowest spot, and we have a 5 foot brush hog.

As I type this, sitting at my desk, my farmer hubby is on the tractor driving in BIG circles, again.

Yesterday he got about 5 acres (?) mowed in 5 hours. We are guessing all in all it is about 25 hours of work, some of that is our fault because we waited until it got a bit tall to mow, the cost of diesel and the time. Eventually we will be planting in this field, but for now we just have to keep it from falling into succession (the forest around it starting to take it over.) We are thinking our first year of putting a little stuff back here will be next year, but we have this water problem. There is none in this field, so it will have to be hauled in, no nice huge cistern to look towards. Water back here will be the big issue, and we are thinking about ways to tackle it. Our first plans are for hoop houses, so those beds will not require as much water.

The second issue is fencing this 20 acre monster. It might have been possible to make the outline of the field more irregular, but I don't know how! We will probably fence it in pieces for specific things. Time will tell....