The property on which I reside is shaped something like a triangle with its 900 foot base running along a road connecting two towns and a historic stone wall defining part of one of the triangle's two sides. Nothing at all defines the other side. I know the point on the road where that boundary begins, but I'd need a surveyor to tell me its precise path. The fact is, I have a tax map that shows me the shape of the property but walking the perimeter involves a lot of guesswork. The land's actual size is indeterminate. Town records, tax assessments and the previous owner have told me that it is either 9, 10 or 11 acres, respectively. It doesn't really matter to me. I won't be constructing anything that's even close to the property lines, and the taxes I pay are based on 10 acres. That seems reasonable. Hiring a surveyor is expensive, so I may never know the truth. I'm not that motivated.
The land has a slope with its high point being at the road and its low point being the apex of the triangle. The hill is significant but nothing like what I'll have to deal with on the larger property. In fact, much of the forested portion (6 or 7 acres) of the parcel is fairly flat. Fairly. Nothing here that's natural is ever truly flat.
The unforested area - which starts at the road - is 2.5 or 3 acres. My house sits roughly in the middle of it with something like a 500 foot front yard and 400 foot back, looking downhill both to the front and left. A small stream runs for most of the year where the field ends. It's a nice view.
When the trees shed their leaves, I get some light pollution straight ahead from towns in Vermont. It's not bad, though. The Milky Way, passing satellites, meteorites and even Andromeda are all easy to see on clear nights, assuming the moon cooperates.
That's a lot of jabbering about where I'm living, but it's essential to explaining what I've been doing so far. The smartassier among you (and you know who you are) will likely, respond with "Oh. Yardwork." Yeah, that's it. But it's a *lot* of yardwork. That kind of turns it into a whole different creature.
I'm not a fan of ticks, so I prefer to keep the lawn short. I mow the field and driveway with a JD tractor pulling a brush hog, then get the edges, steep slopes (there are some near the house and in the back yard) and places where I need it shorter using an ordinary lawnmower. The brush hog cuts a swath of about 4 feet, trimmed to 4 or 5 inches. Setting it to cut any closer than that runs a high risk for the blade. It's easy to bottom out, and sometimes that means hitting rock.
This time of the year, I have to wait on working the field until the dew is gone, and then quit when it gets hot. That gives me a window of 2 or 3 hours. In that time, I can get maybe a quarter of the field mowed. Many of the days are rainy, so mowing the field can keep me occupied for the better part of a week.
With all the small storms (no day is safe), the grass grows fast. I had a bucket of water in the back yard and it looked like the grass around it was an inch higher every day. By the time the mowing is over, it's time to start again!
That might make it sound hopeless, but it's not. The grass won't grow as quickly in the summer when there aren't so many storms. More importantly, there won't be so many obstacles.
Homeowners with fields surrounded by forest are involved in a war of sorts with their trees. The trees want in and will get their way pretty quickly if they aren't regularly combated. After every significant storm, some of them drop branches, drop pine cones and lean further into the field. Saplings are constantly springing up. Most years, a tree or two topple onto the field. Some take a chainsaw to clear. The dead trees fragment into hundreds of pieces when they hit. Ferns growing on the edge of the forest grow quickly and obscure fallen branches. All these things make it harder to mow, and they are especially bad now, when I haven't done a really good job of clearing the field in twelve years.
But it will get better. I can cut down the trees and branches that are most likely to fall or lean down in the path of the tractor. I'll learn more about the field - where its dips and rock protrusions are - so that I can mow at a higher speed. The gravel driveway, now in regular use, might not need mowing at all in the future. Some of the reeds that grow fastest in the back yard may die off completely if I mow them down each time they try coming back. Best of all, I can check the field after every storm and get rid of whatever falls before it becomes an obstacle that the brush hog can't handle.
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