I have mown more lawns in my lifetime than most people who do not do it for a living, I think. I mowed my parent's lawn as a teenager and also several of the neighbour's lawns and even when I had a house of my own, I still mowed my parent's lawn. My father was a paraplegic and my mother thought mowing was for men, so she never did it. My father would pay me $20 to mow the lawn. I would have done it for free, but somehow he felt better by paying me, so I accepted the cash.
The thing is, I did not enjoy mowing lawns. I hated the stinky exhaust from the mowers and I got very very dirty, covered with dust on the dry days or mud on the wet days. Thank goodness we had no mosquitos and few flies living by the ocean. Every once in a while I thought I should tear up a bit more of the lawn for gardens, but it was difficult to manage the gardens I already had. Before living with my parents to care for them, I did my parent's garden and my own. When I got here to Elk Point and my farm, there were several acres to mow, I think around three. Who wants three acres of lawn? Not me. I bought a ride on lawn mower and it still took a long time to mow.
So, I fenced some off for one house and more for the animals and still there was too much lawn left over. Today, I scraped the sod off an area in the front yard and then worked the soil a bit for a garden. Yes, a front lawn, er, used to be lawn, garden. My son pointed out to me that people use that area to turn their cars and trucks around (he does, but I don't) and hay is unloaded there. Hay could be unloaded a little further down the driveway if he didn't have three vehicles parked there. I am going to move the livestock panels that the calves lived in over the winter and clean that area for store parking, or hay unloading or vehicles turning.
In the meantime, there is a garden spot almost ready for planting. The manure from two years ago need to be brought over and put there and the electric poultry fence put around it to keep the chickens out. Those chickens will scratch up all the seeds and eat the shoots if the area is not electric fenced and even then, most of them fly, so they might fly over. I hope not. In the winter that area can be used to turn around on if some one has to turn. Now that the bed and breakfast is no longer a concern, who cares what I do in the front yard? Grow a garden? Yup! And so it starts...
The thing is, I did not enjoy mowing lawns. I hated the stinky exhaust from the mowers and I got very very dirty, covered with dust on the dry days or mud on the wet days. Thank goodness we had no mosquitos and few flies living by the ocean. Every once in a while I thought I should tear up a bit more of the lawn for gardens, but it was difficult to manage the gardens I already had. Before living with my parents to care for them, I did my parent's garden and my own. When I got here to Elk Point and my farm, there were several acres to mow, I think around three. Who wants three acres of lawn? Not me. I bought a ride on lawn mower and it still took a long time to mow.
So, I fenced some off for one house and more for the animals and still there was too much lawn left over. Today, I scraped the sod off an area in the front yard and then worked the soil a bit for a garden. Yes, a front lawn, er, used to be lawn, garden. My son pointed out to me that people use that area to turn their cars and trucks around (he does, but I don't) and hay is unloaded there. Hay could be unloaded a little further down the driveway if he didn't have three vehicles parked there. I am going to move the livestock panels that the calves lived in over the winter and clean that area for store parking, or hay unloading or vehicles turning.
In the meantime, there is a garden spot almost ready for planting. The manure from two years ago need to be brought over and put there and the electric poultry fence put around it to keep the chickens out. Those chickens will scratch up all the seeds and eat the shoots if the area is not electric fenced and even then, most of them fly, so they might fly over. I hope not. In the winter that area can be used to turn around on if some one has to turn. Now that the bed and breakfast is no longer a concern, who cares what I do in the front yard? Grow a garden? Yup! And so it starts...
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