Week 24

Today I did some real, actual, proper farm work. The neighbours have been grazing their stock in our paddocks. I was speaking to M the other day who commented that we needed to run the tractor/mower over the grass to break up the big lumps of grass and to spread around the horse manure. I wasn't sure if the 'we' meant him or us but I quickly volunteered to do it.

I got stuck in as soon as I was back from dropping the girls off at creche. First thing to do was change the attachment on the tractor to the mower, which was a lot trickier than it sounds. Then I went up and down the lavender field, mowing the grass around the lavender plants, cutting down the big clumps of grass in the rest of the paddock, and spreading the manure around as much as I could. For the record the lavender is only in 2/3 of the paddock and the rest is just long grass that we have allowed to grow long rather than wasting time and energy and fuel cutting it.

It took me two hours to do the entire paddock. I've certainly gotten a lot faster at it than when I first started. It used to take two hours just to do around the lavender, let alone the entire field.

I saw M while I was out working and he said I was doing it right. He also said the other fields didn't really need to be mown as it was really only the lavender field where the horses had spent a lot of time and it needed some attention. There certainly was a lot of manure!

After I'd finished doing that I got out the weedsprayer for the first time in a couple of months and wandered down the driveway spraying weeds. It was a little annoying when I got to the end (half a kilometre from the house) and ran out of spray. Got lots of exercise today, that's for sure!

As the days become colder, the wildlife comes closer to keep warm. We possibly have a possum living under the house. I'm pretty sure I've seen mouse droppings around the house too.

-M