August 6, 2005 - The battle with the weeds goes on

I've gotten quite a few e-mails asking me how I can always be working on all this stuff all the time. Oh.... if only you knew...

For folks in suburbia, I think the concept of 18 acres is a little hard to grasp. I have about 12 acres of pasture land. Think about having to mow and weed eat your whole subdivision (48 houses with 1/4 acre each). All by yourself. In your spare time. By the time you get done, its time to start over again.

Most of the area I can mow with my tractor and mower. However, there are some places too steep or too tight for me to get with the tractor and I have to weed eat all that area by hand. I'm sure it adds up to acres.

I'm taking a break on this Saturday after weed eating the whole hillside above the truck. Lucy has moved the horses up the road to another pasture, so it's a good time to get this done.

This area is where the water troughs are.

I hear something behind me and turn around to find a deer grazing.

She doesn't seem to care that I'm here. She kind of moseys on through, eating as she goes.

I walk back toward the truck. Here you can see were I've weed eated the area around the water troughs. The water is gravity fed from a spring just across the fence in the upper right corner of the watering area. Except...

... the pipe from the spring has stopped up.

Usually, the water from the spring runs into the trough on the right, which then overflows into the trough on the left. The water then drains out a pipe in the bottom of the left one and on to the creek. This keeps the animals from stomping the spring and creek into mush. However...

... it seems my negligence in cleaning out this collection box in the last couple of months is going to cause me some real work now. It appears that weed roots and mud have filled up the collection box. Some of it has stopped up the pipe to the troughs. After trying for quite a while to get it unstopped I give up for the day and get back to weed eating. I'll bring my air compressor with me tomorrow and try to blow the line out.

Ahh... just a little more to go. I have to put the blade on the weed eater for blackberry briars. This makes the going slower since it doesn't cut as big a swath as the string.

Most of the blackberry briars and Poke weeds are way over my head. The bad thing is that when you cut the briars down, they fall on you. You get all scratched up and then sweat and weed guts get all on the scratches and burn like the dickens. It's like a battle and they take one last desperate swipe at me before they go down.

I'm pooped. After struggling to pull the weed eater head through the tall briars for so many hours, I just can't do it any more. I'll have to finished up tomorrow...

Definitely going to be a job for the blade.

As I leave, I look back to where I've been working today.  It's looking better. One more day and I'll be finished with this area. That will just leave me the lower fence line to do!

Turning to my right, I look toward the house...

... it's time for a shower and a good plate of cornbread and pinto beans!