The summer strim

Staff. The eagle-eyed among you will perceive that this is not me.

I hired Nicolas for a day to attack the worst of our overgrown terraces.  We are deep in summer now and the potential for bushfire season.

If our mayor was a bit more eagle-eyed, she could have seen that we had a bit of excess mess and sent us The Letter.

Strim or die.

Well it’s probably not as harsh as that (we are Socialists and Communists here in our little commune after all), but we don’t need any sudden fires to have extra fuel.

And now that the gorgeous wildflower season is over – June is the apogee – it’s time to attack the long grass.

I’m not quite ready to wield any heavy cutting blades, so the treat was to see Nico’s car roar up ready to start at 730am.

Now I can appreciate that endless shots of bare bank is not the most thrilling sight. And in fact here is the before and after shots of just one terrace.

Yep. I like the waving grasses too.  But close up you can see there are brambles, a sea of bindweed, nettles and lovely wildflowers being gently but relentlessly strangled by grass.

So the harsh haircut has to happen.  And then I will rake like mad and watch some of the good stuff emerge.  Especially if we get some rain.

The best bit of strimming (well apart from the so steep you don’t know how he manages it stuff) is the orchard.

Now I can get on with the monster job of clearing more soil and planting.  But first, the raking. That might take a whole day.