today was a good day in spite of the heat and humidity and me having to mow. i hate mowing. there's few chores around here i dislike more than that one. when i first moved in here it was with the understanding that Mom would do the mowing. mostly that has continued to be the case but as the years and things have changed i now mow half to three quarters of the grass including the front ditches and stuff to the south which isn't really our property but that's ok as it helps keep the weeds down.
today i was finally able to talk to the neighbors about the south field and what i was doing there to fight back the thistle patch and also to ask about a tree i wanted to kill off. he's a decent guy and we had a good talk - his wife is also nice and i've always enjoyed talking to her too. i learned that they are possibly going to be putting that south field into an evironmental easement which is a contract for 10 years... sounded like they also were going to do some plowing and killing stuff back and then replanting with native grasses, wildflowers, trees, shrubs, etc. so this is a really nice thing and will be good for us too.
i did mention that if they ever felt like selling i'd probably be interested but i doubt that will happen by the response. i also mentioned my website to them with all the notes i have there about the water flows and that i've not been doing any spraying here in the gardens and trying to keep Mom under control but she can spray stuff without telling me but she does know that i do get mad if she does it anywhere near a garden where we grow food... with all the stuff that blows in the air here i'm sure we still get plenty of wind-deposition of the various sprays... still it will be really nice to not have to worry about this any more as it has been an issue often enough.
also i mentioned that i'd love to talk to them more about their plans and to show them what i've done here for erosion control and such. it'd be a great fun project to see happen so i'm glad i reached out to them.
as part of the erosion control issue and talking about the small tree i was able to talk about what that can do to the large drainage ditch because if you shade the grass which is holding the bank of the ditch in place and kill it off too much then the ditch can shift course. i'm not sure he knew about that (as i learned it the really hard way and i'm paying for it all the time now). we also talked property lines and how i've been mowing that south field partially and that's all ok with me but i'd love to not have to do that eventually... we'll see how this goes.
we did not get into deer, groundhogs, rabbits, fences, etc... that's ok...
the other really nice thing would be that i may not do any spraying at all for the thistles. that was a time and expense for me so if they will deal with it next year then i can just keep mowing it short the rest of this year and then see what next year brings... nice to get potential resolution to this for me just to see it not being yet another project for me.
p.s. a few hours later i got a 2nd call from the neighbors and it was good to learn more about what's going on and what plans are in the works.
they may stop over this weekend for a garden tour and more talks.
Steve
