Pasture Mowing

 A couple weeks ago, we took our new riding mower out into the pasture to mow a small area of the field so we could see how the grass recovered. It grew back quickly and looked healthier than the unmowed areas, so I decided to try to tackle the task of mowing the whole front pasture (about 1.5 acres) with our "lawn tractor." I knew my timing was right when I saw that our next door neighbor had mowed his hayfield (above).

 

 Before and after mowing. It's hard to tell from the pic, but in some places I was trucking thru 1-2 foot tall grass.

 The peanut gallery who I swear were pointing and laughing at me every time I came by on my tiny tractor.

 My view from the cockpit. As I sweated my tush off and wrestled the machine out of pot holes and over small ant mountains, I couldn't help but envy our neighbor's giant, air conditioned, completely enclosed, stereo speaker-ed beast of a tractor. Of course, I have to say that this riding mower is a huge improvement on the push mower that I used to use to mow paths out there.

I'm such a spazoid that I managed to get the mower stuck in the "pond" I tried to dig for the ducks in the middle of the pasture. It's been dry for a while so I thought it'd be fine to drive through. Thank goodness for the wench on the front of the 4 wheeler.

The ducks, chickens, and turkeys had a great time hunting bugs in the newly mowed field.

After letting the cut grass dry for a couple days, I raked it all unto piles by hand. Actually gave myself a blister on the dang rake handle, but I got it all up. The dried clipping make great bedding in the poultry pens so I wasn't going to let it go to waste. 

You know you have good neighbors when they see you sweating your hind end off in the field and call you over with an ice cold can of the Champagne of Beers!