Yesterday morning, while it was still cool, I did more weed-eating. This morning, I moved to a different section and weedeated some more. I don’t clear cut everything because there are some things that grow in the edges that I want to keep. So I do selective weed-eating.

I don’t have a push or riding lawn mower, so any grass that gets mowed is either weed-eated or brush-hogged here. The amount of flat, relatively rock-less ground that we have is so small that it makes the cost of a lawn mower a bad investment.

Ordinarily, I like to start at one end of the driveway and work towards the other end. But this morning I deviated from the norm and did a stretch by the electric fence for the horses. Then I moved down to the other end of the driveway to continue where I’d left off on Sunday.

Usually, we don’t get so much rain, and a weed-eating stays good for at least a month or two. But this year, we’ve had so much rain that everything is growing like a jungle. And because of that, it’s more than a little irritating to know that by the time I get to the ‘end’ of my project, it’s going to be time to start over again.

Our driveway is 1/2 mile long, so it’s not a one-day job. At least not for me. I’m getting older and slower nowadays, so it’s not even a 2 or 3 day job anymore, ha. It’s now a long, drawn out affair of working until I get tired, taking a break, working a little more, and then calling it done for the day.

Selective Weed-Eating

Our land is wild, and even wilder if the grass and trees go unchecked. It probably wouldn’t take too long for nature to completely reclaim everything here. And I love our biodiversity. But sometimes we have to reclaim the parts of the land that we need.

Still, when I’m weedeating, I don’t cut everything. Sometimes I leave the daisies. And I love the ferns so I try to avoid them, too, when I can. Then there’s my favorite black raspberries, and I leave those if they’re not actually touching the vehicles as we drive down the driveway.

Also, I love the wild geraniums and the thimbleweeds. I don’t know if this one is a geranium or a thimbleweed (wind anemone), but either way I spared it.

But these briars are always on my whack list. I hate them because they are choking out the trees and other plants. The string trimmer doesn’t really do a good job on them, though, and I really needed the blade weed-eater out there this morning. It’s a lot harder to do selective weed-eating with a blade, though.

Wild Rye

I’ve been hoping this little patch of wild Virginia rye would spread, and it has finally begun to do that. One day, I hope to have enough to try winnowing the grain and making some rye bread. I might have enough by the time I’m 80, lol.

Still, it’s a beautiful wild grass, and I love it.

Io Moth

When I was in grade school, I used to collect moths and butterflies, and dragonflies too.

It’s been about that long ago since I saw an Io moth, and I’m sure it was delighted that I no longer run for the jar of ether anymore, lol. Back then you could actually buy that stuff to kill things for mounting. I can’t even believe I used to collect them! When I consider how many butterflies, moths, and dragonflies I killed in my past, it mortifies me. But I was a little mad scientist back then, I guess. I retained my fascination, but am a lot more of a pacifist now, preferring to observe rather than ‘preserve’.

Painting

Once it became too hot for my selective weed-eating, I went inside, did some laundry and rested a bit. Then finished the painting I’d started for Jax’s birthday gift. Motorcycles have never been on my to-paint list. And when I started this one, I didn’t have my reference photo handy for the barn either.

So the barn was done from imagination and it turned out to look more like a covered bridge. And that’s what it is, then. The motorcycle is also partly imagination, partly different photos of old motorcycles that I looked at. It’s not any specific make or model, just an imaginary bike parked in the sunlit entrance to a covered bridge. Sure hope he likes it!