A Chipper Shredingly Good Time.

Do you remember my battle with the terrible invasive species? And how I piled up their desecrated limbs to be chipper shredded at some point in the future?

That day had finally come. From this experience I have learned several things. One, the chipper shredder will not work on a non level surface. How much of this place is not level you ask? All of it. Number two, multiflora rose, even dead, still wants to cut a bitch, hardcore. And three, bush honeysuckle and multiflora rose make mulch that smells like the perfume of angels.

Which I got to enjoy for approximately one minute before my sinuses were made aware of the situation.

The rest of the day was spent sneezing and coughing and snerking.

Also, have you ever sneezed with hearing protection in? Like the kind that come on the little strings that you you shove painfully into each ear that make you really, really hyper aware of every time you smile? Yeah, well I wouldn't recommend it.

We had a plan. We were ready. And life just showed up and smacked us around for a bit. First off, it became apparent that my dad had never changed the oil in this damn thing. What was left in it was the consistency of black tar. So we drained it and added fresh, along with refilling the gas tank and giving it a general tune up. Test started it, and it ran like a dream.

So we picked up the end and pulled it across the front lawn to the first pile of dead branches. It was at this point we realized, all over again, how much multiflora rose hates us.* We also discovered that the collection bag did not like staying on, and how no matter how tight we made it, it would still gape open at the top and spew mulch out like a bulimic herbivore going through a bad break up.

But beyond that, things actually went kinda well.

Except for the fact that we couldn't find another level spot in the entire top third of our property except in the garden.** Which meant that I had to haul all the dead, and most often spiky branches from all over the meadows. And we also discovered that three huge piles of branches make three tiny piles of mulch.

Like seriously WTF? Is there some sort of worm hole in that thing?

Two branches enter one branch leaves***.

Anywho, at least I got even with that evil demon bitch multiflora rose.

Sonofabitchass plant.

*I cannot possible stress this enough. If anyone you know is planting this shit, please for the love of all that is good and holy talk them out of it. Or kill them. Either one.

**No wood mulch is not good for gardens necessarily, but we wanted something to edge it with to keep the weeds down.

*** If you get this joke I will high five you over the internet. Also, leaf pun FTW!

Scything the Meadows (now with Extra Back Pain)

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Yesterday we scythed the meadows. At this juncture you might be wondering what a scythe is, because for some reason you don't live in medieval Europe.

 This is a scythe.

And you scythe with it. Usually to make hay. Except we weren't making hay and now I am confusing you.

Right.

Every year around this time, we have to cut sections of the meadows back because canada goldenrod is an invasive bitch. If left unchecked it will eat the meadows, and also I should point out that the meadows are what I want to become hay fields. Now where most people would use a bush hog or something, I don't. I get out their and cut that bitch back by hand. Why?

Because I hate myself. Because I think this way is better.

And also because I refuse to buy a bush hog and a lawn mower is not built for this shit. If a bought a bush hog I would have to buy gas for it, I would have to find a place to store it, I would have to maintenance it every year and it would lack the precision that a scythe has.

When you scythe it's just you and the wind and the neat shing ching sound the blade makes as it cuts through the devil weed. And the dull thump as you hit a stump, or the even more terrible scrap as you hit a rock, or the deeply dreaded twang of half buried fence wire fucking up your shit. Cleaning shit out of the meadows? Year round job.

This whole idea started really, though, because I couldn't start the weed eater. So I said, what else can I use? And this was the answer. We each have one, because each scythe is set to a specific person. So if you ever have to use one adjust the damn handles or your arms will fall off and you will weep bitter tears.

Last year it was a battle of epic proportions. Each meadow was almost nothing but goldenrod, and it's think woody stems were beating my scythe up hardcore. It was hours and hours of doing nothing but cutting this shit back and praying. Then we spent last spring and this spring spreading grass seed. And we were rewarded with a field of lush thick waist high grass in our target area*.

This year was much easier, although nothing quite gets your heart rate up like scything. I should also point out that I was doing this in the heat of the day because I had been at work all night and I had spent the morning sleeping. Because when shit has to get done, shit has to get done regardless of whether or not you feel like doing it. Or whether or not you are injured. Or whether or not you have slept at all the night before.

Look what I'm trying to say is that my style of farming is fucking hard.

But worth it.

Probably.

*We can't do every meadow at once, obviously. So we sorta pick one and go, 'this is the year.'

Multiflora Rose is a Demon Plant From Hell.

You might remember my previous entry about removing invasive species from my land. Specifically, mutiflora rose, and bush honeysuckle.

Here is three giant bushes in a row, oh boy lucky me.

 You know what, removing the bush honeysuckle was easy. Removing the multiflora rose was like being dropped into a nest of king snakes armed only with a bag of mixed vegetables. Even if you won, you were still gonna get fucked up.

I cannot began to describe the horror that is tearing down this plant. First of all, you have to cut the whole thing and move the whole thing as one unit because all the little thorns have stuck this plant together like Velcro. If Velcro was out to get you that is.

This is how it went down. First I would cut a hole into the side of the bush and then I would began to cut each think woody stem off at the base. Now, with bush honeysuckle, each limb could be drug away to the collection pile individuality. With multiflora rose, each limb would lock together in an evil tangly mass. I wanted to remove the whole plant and chipper shred the damn thing so that meant I had to drag each limb to the nearest road. Which meant that the plant had time to fuck my shit up.

I would optimistically grab a branch at it's very base, where there were no thorns, and give a yank. In a perfect world, this would either pull the branch free, or allow me to tow the whole bush along to the pile. In this world however, all that happened was that I would cause the remaining bush to sway wildly. Which, if you were me, meant you had an angry bush swinging wildly at you, trying to grab a handful of hair or claw at your face because apparently roses fight like drunk party girls.

Also, to add to pain, the thorns had a way of sneaking around my gloves or worse yet, falling down into my shoe and getting lodged in my sock. By the end of the day I looked like I had tried to wrestle a cougar.

Have you ever walked in the door and been afraid to look in the mirror because you are afraid that your land has cut up your face? No. Just me?

Luckily my face had escaped unscathed somehow. Mainly because I was not looking forward to trying to explain to my clients and coworkers why I looked like Freddie Krueger had found me in my sleep. I am also fairly sure that telling them the monster under the bed did it would not have been worth the looks on their faces because I need to keep my job in order to pay for things.

Which is exactly why I can't be trusted with this kind of injury.

At all.

The Battle Against the Terrible Invasive Species

Today was a day of epic battle. A day of terror and triumph. The day I decided to go cut down some of the motherfucking invasive species on my land.

Namely bush honeysuckle and multiflora rose. Bush honeysuckle being exactly what you would picture it being, a giant bush of honeysuckle. At this point you might also be wondering why I would want to remove it. It's honeysuckle, Everybody loves honeysuckle, the sweet smelling the flowers, the soft leaves, the nostalgia of a favored grandma keeping some in the back garden. Except that the kind that you remember was most likely the native vine honeysuckle, you know, the one where you can pull out the stamen and get a drop of pure nectar on your tongue.

The thing I'm talking about is an invasive demon bush from hell.

The thing about bush honeysuckle is that it wants your meadows. All of them. Here is a picture of it.

Give me your meadows, I have teh hunger.

It will eat up all the space you have and then some. Cows and horses won't touch it, and the cattle farm at the end of the road has a huge field that is nothing, nothing but bush honeysuckle. So I decided it was time for it to die.

Armed with a pair of clippers* I spent my day removing this devil plant from my fields. And woods. And meadows. And any other damn place I could find it. This was all practice though, a mock battle if you will, for the true horror of my day. A plant that makes strong men weep and brave men cower.

Mulitflora Rose. You demon bitch you.

Try to contain your frantic screams. It can no longer hurt you.

The thing you have to understand is that multiflora rose is a member of the rose family and it has thorns. Real, sharp curved thorns. I would let the bush honeysuckle live if it was along the road, and out of my way, but I single handily fought every single mulitflora rose I found. If left unchecked, this demon plant will take over as well spreading it's evil monoculture as far as the eye could see. I found it spreading along the ground, I found it climbing up the sides of trees, and I found giant bushes of this stuff. It was everywhere and it was very, very sharp.

Let me tell you something right now. Bush honeysuckle will accept it's fate and die quietly. Multiflora rose goes down kicking a screaming and failing. It hit me in the face and snaked it's evil tendrils around my legs and back and tried to trip me, and on multiple occasions cut right through my leather work gloves like they were made of cotton candy.

Fighting back multiflora rose was a lot like what I always thought fighting a dragon would be like, if the dragon couldn't breath fire for some reason.

Actually, it more like that scene from Lord of the Rings where Gandalf fights the Balrog, but specifically that bit where they land in the water and it's evil flame is extinguished because I was cutting right after it had rained.

Yeah like that.

Okay. Look, if anybody you know is all like 'hey I should plant some multiflora rose in my garden', you should fucking tackle them. I don't care if you are in the goddamned plant isle at the Lowes, you motherfucking tackle them because we can't let the mutiflora rose win you guys. We can't let it win.

I thirst for your blood puny human.

 

* I know I won't be able to remove it entirely, but my goal is only to mange it, not to eradicate it. Because eradicating it would mean salting the earth so nothing would ever grow again.