Sward play

My little fitbit machine proudly chirped that I had taken 30 000 steps today. And I am not surprised. It takes six hours just to mow all the lawns.  And that is a lot of walking behind the mower; collecting grass clippings and covering the spaces between the hedge trees with the resulting mulch.

Right now it looks just like green goo.  But it will dry out and settle down to a more acceptable beige.

And my I do love a sward.  I started in the orchard as it’s the closest place to where I store the mower.  And from there you just swing round up the track to the lawn around the pool. Take a brave detour into the duck pond area. This is more nettles, wild mint, tussocks, queen anne’s lace, grab grass, mystery weeds and brambles than lawn. 

But from a distance it doesn’t look half bad.

And from there I zipped up our newly resurfaced road to get to the lawns in front of the house, the paths in the potager and onto the main lawn.

I have no idea why I take this route, but I seem to plod in the same direction every time.  Mind you, I don’t often do the big full day of mowing.

From there it was up to the east garden which was crying out for a bit of taming.  The unwanted wildflowers were poised to do their thing.

And from there I was able (for the first time) to go up the courtyard to reach the walnut path.. 

I was never able to get the heavy mower over the gravel, so I used to take a very long detour all the way up the back road to reach the area outside the guest house and then the walnut path.

The poor old east garden has a rather straight bald patch right in the middle. It was the most direct route from the building work in November and December  up to the end of the property where all the secrets lie.

We call it the dechetterie, but it’s really just a very steep bank at the very edge of the farm where you can tip all manner of broken tiles, unwanted rubble, dead cement, fallen stone walls. You name it, it goes over the edge and will eventually fill in and make more land.

Our builder Bebere has been working on this farm for over twenty years, and he has always used it as the Place to Hide All Sins.  So we continue the tradition.  But hopefully I can inspire people to walk along the road rather than wear a bald patch in the middle of what once was a lovely lawn.

I ran out of daylight to finish the biggest job. The first terrace below the road.  Boy is it lush.  I managed to get half of the terrace mown before I really had to stop for the day.  One is slowed by having to empty the grass collector into the big sacks and then take the sacks to where I want to cover bare soil.

Tomorrow I will finish and get the whole soft fruit orchard area covered in grass cuttings. Once I get the weedproof fabric down first. Well, that’s the plan.

And now, about an hour later than planned, I’m off to bed.