The enemy in my sights

enemy verbascumAh yes, my old fiend the verbascum. Growing tall and happily in the lower meadow on the terraces below the house.

I strolled down for a spot of strimming first thing this morning. But my stroll turned to a stuttering run when I spotted the beast.  You can’t see it in the picture, but it’s almost five feet tall.

Was. One swift quick draw of the secateurs from my back pocket and it was felled in no time.

And that put a ridiculous smile on my face and set me up for the day.  Boy you can tell I’ve been strimming too long when I start to take it out on plants.

I had thought I was going to do a few nifty narrow terraces, but this verbascum sent me towards the big bowl of a meadow which is by far the largest strimmable space on our farm. bracken forest

And it’s full of a very successful crop of bracken.

I had started thwacking into it wth vim.  But it was too thick to really get a rhythm going.  And I had to keep stopping to pull out more strimmer wire.

So with the sun creeping ever closer to my work project, I did a fast strim of all the easy bits. (It took over an hour, fast is relative when you have a cutting machine on a steep slope in your hands.)

strimmed meadowAnd then out came the secateurs and in I waded.

I have three huge piles of freshly cut bracken and an almost clear run to the perimeter fence.

All I need to do now is a final strim. And a mow. But it ‘s too hot there now.

And I’ve almost run out the thickest strimmer wire.

So I saved what I had and marched (trudged) up to the duck pond and did some easy grass cutting before the cutting wire ran out completely.

Done. But where has the morning gone? It’s already 130pm. That’s an awfully productive day’s work.  Now it’s time to be productive with a kettle and a pot of tea. I’ve earned it.