The Madness of Mowing

1

Incredibly dewy this morning. Or maybe that moisture is last night’s rain not yet dried away. The air is already thick with vapor.

I slept well-enough last night. The flies never bothered me. I caught a dozen in the fly traps. Unfortunately I caught a couple of blue daubers as well. I tried to save them; pried them off the gooey tape, tried vinegar as a solvent, vinegar always works. To no avail, I’m afraid. The dauber is nothing without its wings and I glued those light membranes shut when I hung that trap.

I was standing at the front door of the farmhouse between the bouts of rain last evening when a red wasp dive bombed me, apropos of nothing. I hadn’t seen but a few yesterday and didn’t try to kill the few I did see. But they know me from before and I have no doubt someone had called in a hit.

This was a kamikaze mission. It landed on my chest. I knocked it down and it went under the stove as I was trying to mash it against the floor with a spatula. I sprayed some spray into the gap between the floor and the bottom of the stove but I wasn’t sure I was zapping the wasp. Eventually it crawled out, stumbled out. I got it onto one of the large wooden rectangular boards we’ve placed over portions of the kitchen floor and rubbed it into oblivion.

I’m leaving later today but I’ll go after any red wasps I see. The daubers I don’t touch, or try not to bother. Here in the second week of June, they are beginning their two months of ubiquity, during which I count them as company.

I am listening to the sounds of birds in the morning air. Bunting, indigo. Phoebe. Perhaps a warbler. And one frog-like rattle-ish call that might be the cuckoo. Or a frog. I heard it last night, before or during the rain. I was pretty sure it was a cuckoo, as they are known to be vocal before rain, garnering the nickname “rain crow.”

2

Yes, it is all going to be cut. But it doesn’t all need to be, it shouldn’t all be cut at once.

Divide a plot of grass, whether it be a yard, a lawn, a property, a park, a field into three pieces. Cut one-third of it every week such that every blade of grass is cut every three weeks. In the meantime, two parts rest, regenerate, fill in, save the pollinators, waft gently in the breeze, retain rain or dew that might otherwise more easily run or burn away.

Make lanes. Use these paths as ways to get into, alongside what might have gotten too long. Shoot the clippings onto the parts that were cut a week or two before; there’s room for them there, the mower will always be able to breathe.

3

I’m still a little high from some Jack Herer. The car is somewhat packed. The grass is cut. Not all of it. Just enough. Perhaps a third of what I would cut, or what Eric used to cut before a Farm Party, has been trimmed. Last time here I cut a little more, maybe half of the maximum. Some of what I didn’t cut has only been cut now once. In a few spots that I used to mow, I have used only the beastly gas trimmer, which allows me to keep the mower off of some hills and out of some corners.

I’d love to let more of the “front yard” grow but part of my goal in mowing this vacant farmhouse is to make clear that someone is here often enough to keep the grass trim. Drivers headed down the hill from Alder Spring Road get a good view of the front yard, and parts beyond, and I want it to look looked after.

Despite the rain yesterday, despite this morning’s dense fog, the grass and the ground dried quickly. Once the sun came out, any sign that it rained multiple inches here this weekend evaporated as well. Suddenly, it looks dry out there, desert-like, Southwestern.

The prickly pear cacti are blooming, several of them around the house. I’ve only ever seen one in bloom, two years ago. This year, there are four or five with two yellow, puffy blooms each, like parachutes opening, or pantaloons, baggy pants, stewed tomato, illuminated by wind, by sun. Yellow. Bright yellow.

It’s 13:44. I will shower. Four-thirty would be a good time to leave, I thought. Gets me home at 7:15, well after the worst of the afternoon, after the day’s trucks. I’m two hours from leaving. Shower, sweep, finish packing the car, turn off the water, close it down. No baseball until 5:40.

What else can I take out to the car? I can think of nothing, so I sweep.

Later. 14:14. Road graders, two of them. Out here, where it’s quiet, you can hear those heavy machines coming from more than a mile away.

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4.

I gotta drop my negativity. I just have to. Where is it getting me? What good is it? What is it worth?

Evidence of a mouse on kitchen table. 9.12.23. Evidence of toad—two larger turds.

Some mold/mildew on kitchen walls. I’ll put disp gloves on: wipe mildew and put out mouse traps.

Then cut grass. Which is long-enough again. I won’t cut it all. I’ll cut what I didn’t cut last time. Most of the area below. Campfire Landing. And around the house. Some on rock. Some by shed. One if by back drive, two if by what I haven’t cut this year. Get in around the feature oak, the white oak on the house side of the front drive.

Get shards, get shards, get thee to a shardery!

Showered. 18:27. Solar Shower proved its place. Warm shower. The Sun.

I wish I could call Phil.

Rythm Jack Herer has had me high for an hour. Repeat purchase & would get again. Flavor doesn’t stand out. It’s a little spicy, pepper nacho. No fruit. A little gas. Comes now a car down the road.

5

That ATV could have been Clifty. That didn’t occur to me until now. It stopped. I was afraid. I did not hear his voice but I never went out to see. Who would he be talking to, other than his dogs?

Sound of a whip-poor-whil this morning, from the far edge of the field. In September? It must never have found a mate in the spring.

6

Chilly morning. Incredible. Haven’t felt a chill like this in MO/IL since… May? April?

Pump switch adjust. Cut-out 40 is correct, so I want to tighten the differential switch only. For a longer cycle, clockwise.

Bring an array of sandpapers. 60, 80, 120, 150, 180, 220.

The daubers are mostly gone. I’m probably going to mow more below.

Baby saw needs sharpening.

The frog that lives on the pump. Just saw it in the kitchen. It has a chunnel to get from there to here. Pickerel frog.

The flies are bad. Cluster flies. That dead opossum.

7

It’s 3:09, 9.14.2023. I have the BBC World Service going on the Farmhouse radio. My portable radio is out of battery. I must’ve left it “on” in the AUX IN mode yesterday.

I was having trouble sleeping. I played a podcast. Sometimes I can fall asleep to a podcast. I dozed a little but I was mostly awake for it. So I decided to get up. The stars are impeccable. This time of year to the east, this time of day, Gemini over the pasture. Taurus and The Pleiades. Very bright, very clear.

I swept. The bedroom floor I’m in, the middle room. Not very dirty. Most of the dirt was at the foot of my bed, from my feet. Some on the fitted sheet, where my feet were this afternoon when I lay down for twenty minutes without falling asleep.

Then I got up and fired up that ghastly weed-eater. I used it like a scythe to cut through the patch of grass between campfire landing and the creek’s usually dry side channel. I hadn’t cut that grass at all this year. Someone will probably camp there for Fall Farm Party. Previously, there’s been Can Jam games played there, or one year it was cornhole. But that’s been several years ago now.

I believed that patch of grass would be tricky to mow on account of being long and untouched all year. What might be concealed therein? Small animals? Branches? There were some thick chunks of branch that might’ve dented the mower blade. Going in first with the weed-eater was the right move. I don’t know what I’ll do with the cut grass, of which there is a bunch. Rake it? Leave it until next time? Let it dry, then mow over it?

Cutting that patch of grass opened access to the large locust limb that fell back in that area in July or August. I started up the baby saw and first cut down a thin elm that was growing between two other younger trees at the base of the rock. I had been thinking about removing that elm for years. It’s a Siberian Elm, I believe.

It came down easily; fell in the direction I had intended. Then I sawed up its limbs and trunk and piled them up at the base of the rock. There were still some hot coal on the fire after I burned what had been there this morning. But the elm is green so I didn’t want to throw it on and have it sit there on the coals and smolder. All it would have done was throw column after column of dark smoke into the air. I’ll burn green brush but only by throwing it on an already humming fire.

Then I sawed up a majority of the downed locust limbs, which were mostly upper branches. There was some decent stove wood on a large trunk-like limb. I took five rounds from it, to be split at a later date. Locust burns well in the stove. It’s a pretty wood, honey blonde. Tawny auburn gold.

I piled the rest of the branches and larger limb pieces near where the big branch had fallen, just like I had done with the elm. They can sit and season for five weeks until Farm Party rolls around. It’ll make for good bonfire fodder.

There is more locust to cut. Part of the big limb did not fall all the way to the ground; it’s still hung up, touching the ground at an angle, wedged between the ground and the remaining part of the tree. I’ll deal with that the next time I’m here, when I’ll have the bigger saw. It looks like it could be partially hollow, rounds of which look cool when they are tossed on a hot fire in the dark, flames coursing through their centers.

8

3:35. Sleep will feel good when it comes back around again. Yesterday morning’s dream involved a recently renovated library. All of the books were stacked away and it wasn’t clear how I might access them.

There is some poison ivy in the pasture, on the other side of the newer gate. Never seen any there before. I might’ve brushed against it when I went to see if there was any fruit on that nearest persimmon tree. I did get a couple. One direct from the tree, one from the ground. But that tree doesn’t look happy. It’s lost a lot of its lowest branches. It looks parched.

Saw a shooting star went I went outside just now. It’s chilly out there. Fifty degrees and holding.