MOWING DONE JUST IN TIME

 I FINALLY mowed.  Well mostly, ha. 

I was going well, I edged everything first, which is a great way to start.  It was hot, "feels like" of 103 but I had to do it.  More on that momentarily. Anyway, I was finished with the back and sides and most of the front when I went to do the driveway.  The grass was pretty heavy, and it bogged down the mower blades.  Normally that's not a big deal, just turn it back on.  But I did that and the mower blades wouldn't engage.  I knew exactly what it was.

A clod of grass was wedged in between the end of one of the mower blades and the edge of the mower deck housing and it wouldn't turn so it automatically shuts off. That's happened before over the years and usually I just have to get under there and dig/pull it out and it works fine.

I drove it to the driveway and laid down and spend a good 40 minutes trying to get that. Scissors, pliers, a spray bottle of water, nothing could dislodge it.

I had this patch of grass left and I looked at the time, my heartrate, the heat and said to myself "I'm about 90% done, I think that's good enough, it's not worth risking it".  Drove the mower to the shed and put it up.  I am hoping as it dries, in a week or two (whenever I have to mow again) it will be easier to remove the dried grass/dirt.

Didn't cover as much as usual, but like I said, close enough, ha.  And best of all, it's DONE for now which is what I wanted because...

...we are on Tropical Storm watch!  It's not yet a named storm (as this posts) but if it does, it will be "Edouard".  They are expecting landfall tomorrow.

It will most likely be only a rain event, no heavy winds predicted, though that can change as a storm spins up into something bigger if it slows down.  At this point though, just rain. 

 Most of the heaviest rain misses the farm but if it wobbles a bit, we could get that.

Fingers crossed.

HOT DAY TO MOW PLUS A FUNNY MOMENT

I wish I had the before picture.  It was a jungle for sure.  I broke the work into both days.  On Saturday, I spent a couple hours doing the edging/trimming.  Went around the orchard area raised beds, then the well shed, the house, the driveway, the barn and the shed. 

Phew, it was hot.

How hot?

Really hot.

But I got that done.

Then Sunday, I mowed.  Here is one angle, looks so much better.  With no rain in the forecast for the next 7 days, hopefully I will have a week off from yardwork. 

Here's another angle.  Again, just short and hopefully it will be able to stay like that for at least a couple of weeks.  I could use the break, ha.  We shall see.

Here at the stats.  About average.

And here's a funny:

2nd Man:  "Whatever happened to that box lid that blew away when we were loading trash in the truck?"

1st Man:  "Hmm, I don't know I haven't seen it."

Several weeks later:

1st Man:  "Oh wait...

"...here it is!"

Oops! 🤣🤣

IT WAS A WORKING OUTSIDE WEEKEND

 I wish I had more pics of before but suffice to say, no mowing for the better part of three weeks with lots and LOTS, of rain, it was out of control.

Here is a great before.  This is part of the side yard next to the well shed.  It was like this all over the yard; front, back, side, driveway etc.

And here is that same spot after.  Much better.

Here's a side yard shot next to the garage.  That's Barnabas, our old mesquite tree.  I need to do some clearing there but the mower can't get closer and there is debris like rocks, etc. that will have to be cleared first (while watching for snakes, ha).

Yep, over two hours on the Zen Machine.  Covered 7.2 miles, ha.  That's because I had to mow a lot of areas first with the mowing deck up so it wouldn't bog down and then mow the same spot again with the deck at normal height.

After mowing, I had to edge and trim.  This is the orchard area, and the mower can't get in between the beds.  But the trimmer works great for this.

Here is the well shed.  After I mowed all around it, I had to edge it to keep it looking neat.  And that is why we had the slab poured to be a little larger than the shed...I can safely edge without damaging the building with the trimmer line. 

Now to get it painted, ha!

But in the end, after mowing AND edging, it looks so much neater.

Here is the back of the house (and our pile of septic excavation dirt that they use to fill in low spots, ha).

Here is the front from the barn/shed area.  Lots of clippings but most of it blew away in the storm that we had come through Sunday night.  

It's done and I feel accomplished.  Now I just need to get into the mindset of remembering that I can mow anytime now, if it looks like extended rain is coming, I can mow on a Wednesday night after work or early Sunday morning.  Or I can edge on Friday night and then mow Saturday evening.  Before, it was a 45 mile drive out here and I had to time it to get back into town and had to pick and choose my yard battles.  Now I'm here for all the battles, ha!

A new strategy awaits! 

BACK ON THE ZEN MACHINE

 The first official mow of the year is in the books.

The service shop dropped it off a couple weeks ago and I had to wait for some rainy weather to finally clear out.

I am finally able to start clearing some of the areas "post construction" that had grown up a lot.  Wish I had a before pic of this but suffice to say, it was heavily overgrown.  This area still has some construction debris, concrete chunks and such in it so I have to walk it first and move stuff or mow around it for now.

Also cleared around the well shed and Barnabas (the big mesquite).  I got as close as I could but will have to use the string trimmer for the closer to the tree.

It was a usually time, about an hour and a half and did about three acres.  The weather was cool and it was definitely a moment of Zen...until...

Speaking of construction debris, I looked at the mower before I closed the shed doors and thought, "what's wrong with the mower?".  Oh crap, a flat tire.  Sigh.  This mower has never had the tires treated with that awesome green good,, ha, so I will be off to the store soon to get some tire Slime.

There won't be any mowing this weekend because it is supposed to rain all day Saturday so I'll have time to get that and get the tires fixed. 

And hey, now I have a concrete driveway to do this type of work on!  Can't wait!  It will certainly be much easier.

Hope your Easter weekend gets off to a great start!

HOT MOWING DAY AND BONUS RABBIT

It was hot.  But I mowed.  I had to.  It's out of control, ha, since it's been two weeks since the last mowing and regular rain.

I mowed what I could. I couldn't use the weedeater/trimmer since it died.  Working on that now.  Hope to have a new before next weekend because the orchard area is WILDLY out of control.

This is the Barnabas area, it's starting to grow up more but I can't get in the area much with the mower, there is a lot of concrete scrap over there (they will clear that later) that they are using for driveway repairs.

Here is the area off the back of the garage, you can see the new well (it's still so awesome finally having our own well, ha).  That wooden, walled-in area is where they keep scraps and construction trash.  The grass will grow back here eventually but this area might end up with a wooden deck as extension of the concrete, later.

It was only about an hour on the mower since there is not as much to mow because I can't get to a lot of it with construction stuff.  We've also given up worrying about the trails.  We're going to have so much clearing done after we close, it's more practical to just not waste energy and resources on getting that cleared.

But about 4pm, I called it a day.  With a "feels like" of 106, it was time.  The nice thing, I could go in the house and sit and relax and there was a nice breeze and it was out of the sun.  Here in another week or so, I'll be able to plug in a fan and THAT will be awesome!

Before I started, I saw a bunny!  It's always so fun to see rabbits.  We can't wait till we're out there and we see them more often, though I'm sure I won't want them in my garden!  Anyway, they sure are cute!

OK, tomorrow, check back for the long awaited finished (almost) exterior!

SO THIS HAPPENED WHILE MOWING AND ECLIPSE UPDATE

Saturday was a perfect day for mowing.  I thought about skipping, but with heavy rain in the forecast, I figured if I waited, it would be even worse this weekend and maybe too wet to mow then.

So, it was a great day of mowing, cool breeze and just perfect weather.  I was having a great time until a glitch happened that hadn't ever happened before.

I was mowing a trail and I went through an area where the branches were hanging across the path.  I did as I always do, ducked down and drove slowly through them.  However, on one of the branches (mesquite), a thorn caught my hat and pulled it off.  I stopped the mower and got off and looked around to see where it landed and thought, "why are things so blurry?"

My glasses were gone as well.  Oops!

I looked around, but let's be honest, if you need glasses to see clearly, looking for your glasses without said glasses, well, it just doesn't work, ha.  I went over to 2nd Family (she was out mowing as well) and asked her to come help me look.  

On the ground?  No.

Under the mower?  No.

In the brush?  No.

Not sure if you can see in the photo above but they are there.  In plain site.

Here is a closeup:

They were hanging in the branch!

Ha!  I think we both spotted them about the same time.  Hey, I kept my heart rate under control so that was good, LOL!  I thanked her and we each went about the rest of our mowing adventures.

It was about average.  A few spots I skipped but overall, a great day to mow.

And get things looking ship shape for another couple of weeks (hopefully).  I did a little edging but remembered what the doctor said and took my time and didn't overdo.  I can finish next weekend, no hurry.

OK, so it was cloudy, overcast and sprinkling most of the day yesterday.  Not very conducive to seeing the eclipse, even if at 95%.  When you wake up and it's dark skies and then it gets darker for a few minutes and goes back to just still dark, it's not very noticeable, ha.

2nd Family took this pic...

...using a phone camera through the glasses.  It didn't get this dark, ha, but still pretty cool.  She said the same thing, it was dark and gray but with a few breaks in the clouds and she was able to get this one.

And I wish I could take credit for this one, I just found it on social media with no credit to who came up with it.  It was too cute not to share.  But now, you can say you have seen the full (Oreo) eclipse!  😀

ONE MORE MOW IN THE BOOKS AND PEAR UPDATE

I took a vacation day Friday to go to the farm and do my yard stuff because we had an important meeting Saturday.  More on that soon.  Of course to both of us, any day out there is a vacation!

I got there about 8:45am and it was sunny, clear and just an almost perfect day.  The colors of everything seemed so brilliant and vibrant in the early morning light.  I might have been able to skip mowing but with our cooler weather and limited chance of rain, this could very well be the last mow of the season.

I fired up the Zen Machine 2 and got to it.  It was a happy day for sure.  With the cool breeze, I enjoyed every moment of it.

A little shorter length of time than normal, but almost as much coverage.  I could tell from the brush on the trail areas that there was no need to mow them because they are fading away.  I'm fine with that.

As usual, we love the way it looks when done, so clean and tidy looking.  I checked my mower app for the previous years of mowing and here are the last dates:

10/15/22

11/13/21

10/31/20

10/26/19

11/03/18

10/14/17

It could end up being this one or might have one more.  Odds seem to be in my favor but we shall see what the weather brings in the next week or two. A couple inches of rain could give us another burst of green.

Here is the 'wild pear tree' that we had to cut a few months ago at the request of the power company.  Several of you have asked about it and so far, it's hanging in there.   It is starting to spread out into a sort of new canopy that will hopefully look good and still produce pears next year.

Time to pull out our homemade orchard guide and see what to do now to give it the best chance next Spring.

HOPE YOU ALL HAD A GREAT WEEKEND!

HOT DROUGHT AND FARMSHARK

Went to the farm.  Figured I wouldn't have to mow.

And I was right.  It's turning "Summer beige".  Or maybe "drought brown", ha.

I did need to cut back some bushes and trim some things.  Also needed to work in the orchard area because it was out of control before things turned brown so it was a good time to do it.

I edged around each bed and then used the electric mower in between each one.  It looks much neater, albeit a little dry.  I did water it all very well and watered everything on the porch.  

I worked my butt off in the heat and I realized it was after 3pm.  I checked the weather app:

...99 degrees with a feels like of 117!

On the good news side, I came back into town and was looking through photos and I think I found out what happened to our missing apples:

That darn #farmshark

😀😀😀😀😀😀