RAINY DAYS AND SUNDAYS

Well Saturday was a blast, more on that tomorrow, but Sunday was, well...

Not anything like Saturday.  It was overcast, sprinkling and just a general messy day.  Since it was not going to be a productive day for both of us to be there, 2nd Man stayed in town and I went out because if nothing else, I had to get the Zen Machine ready to be picked up for its appointment.

When I got unloaded and sat on the porch for a bit to get ready, it opened up and poured rain.  For about 3 minutes.  Then it was back to gray and heavy clouds.  I realized as I went to the mower shed, the ground was not wet.  The rain was brief and just didn't get much wet.  I decided to see what I could get done.

I didn't really have to mow but I did make a few passes around the driveway and front yard just to keep things tidy. Then I started on what I had originally wanted to do...brush clearing!

Here are some examples:

This whole area was overgrown with brush.  It's all dormant now so it is easy to mow over.  The area around the white lines is newly clear.  Prior to this we couldn't even walk through here. 

Now this photo is a bit different.  This is off the driveway (at the top part of the photo).  The narrow path between the white lines is where I used to mow.  That was it.  Just a path the width of the mower deck.  Now you can see how much more space has been cleared out.

All of that inside the white lines is new space.

Here is another example. Again, all the stuff outside the white lines is newly cleared.  You might ask why I didn't just go ahead and clear all of it.  Well these are mesquite trees.  You can see that they grow really low to the ground.  On a riding mower it actually hurts to get too close to them (thorns).

Same thing on these.  I cleared all of this area, creating new paths through the trees but couldn't get very close to the trees themselves.  However, this will make it easier to get underneath and trim branches. Then I can use the trimmer to clear the rest of the grass and it will eventually be easier to get to.

In some areas I just create whole new paths that didn't exist before like this meandering path...

...and in other areas I just widen the existing ones.  Over the course of a couple of seasons the sides of the places I mow start to encroach on the path.  Above is an example of widening a path.  I take advantage of the off season and clear them back again making it easier to keep neat and tidy.  

Sure, this may give me more to mow, but over time as it stays cleared, they don't grow back as fast and eventually it just become grass without the brush.  Much easier to maintain.

Alas, as much fun as I was having, I checked the radar and rain was moving back into the area.  I parked the mower outside, let it cool down and then I covered it using the same method as a couple of seasons ago when the same thing happened, rain on the mower pick up day.  I covered it with a plastic painter's tarp and with wind blowing, I took some rocks and put them around to weigh it down.

We need to get a cover for it.  It stays in the shed year round but there are a few times like this when it does sit outside so a cover would be good to have on standby for use when needed.

As this posts, they should be picking it up and it will get all the fluids changed, belts inspected and tightened, filters changed and blades sharpened.  They also wash it and make it look pretty, ha!

Hope you had a good weekend, tomorrow more on the rugby game.