Category: The land

I’ve posted in the past about my doubts about joining the millions of Americans whose biggest job, aside from going to work, is keeping up their lawn. Last year I didn’t mow at all. I didn’t have time, because there was so much work to be done finishing the house. Nor did I have a lawn mower until today. The biggest factor that made me decide to give up and mow is that I want to walk and putter outside without being afraid that I might step on a snake. And besides, a certain amount of lawn is like an extension of the house, as are porches and decks.

I did some thinking and research before I decided on a mower. The area around my house is very hilly and uneven. So I figured I needed a riding mower that was as narrow and flexible as possible. I pretty quickly zoomed in on the Snapper mowers. As far as I could determine, Snapper makes the narrowest riding mower available — 28 inches. The front and rear suspensions are independent so that it flexes nicely over uneven terrain. Another plus was that the engine is in the back, with its weight on the rear wheels to improve traction. Because I lived in apartments in San Francisco and didn’t have to deal with such things, today was the first time I’ve used a lawn mower in almost 20 years. This is the first riding mower I’ve ever owned.

I took it for a spin and was amazed. I had not really expected to be able to mow my entire backyard and orchard area, because it’s very steep back there, but I was amazed how well the mower Jeeped up and down my hillside. I ended up bush-hogging my entire orchard area, clearing out the briars, tiny trees, and standing thatch from last year’s thick grass, which grew to about three feet tall.

It’s going to look great when the grass turns green.

What my backyard looked like last May

Moss

Holly

Another clump of moss

The ferns have lain down in the cold.

How did the squirrels miss the hickory nut?

Ice in the little waterfall

I believe this is wild ginger.

Rhododendron or mountain laurel … I can never tell them apart.

Running cedar. It grows on the ground with long runners.

Honeysuckle. You can’t kill it.

Arbor vitae. I’ve planted a lot of them.

The house is on the side of a steep hill, with woods behind it and below it.

A captive indoor begonia looks longingly toward the woods.

I still have a little lake of cosmos flowers beside my driveway. They just won’t quit. The bumblebees are working them hard. The perennials I planted in the spring didn’t do much this year. But the cosmos, an annual, went wild. Next year, I will plant even more.

Should I regret having planted thousands of square feet with three varieties of clover? The clover draws varmints like peach peels draw fruit flies. Just this morning I saw one of the resident groundhogs up on its hind feet about 10 feet from a couple of turkeys, trying to get the turkeys to go away. Early yesterday morning I saw a doe curled up asleep about 15 feet from my deck. She comes regularly with her little spotted bambi to eat the clover.

I harass the deer and groundhogs regularly by throwing things at them, or shooting the air rifle at the ground a few feet away from them, but nothing seems to intimidate them. The groundhogs still run from me, but the doe is so brazen that she stands and glares at me for a while before she runs into the woods. I’ve pretty much decided to leave the turkeys alone. I think they mostly eat seeds, but they do eat snakes and insects.

Deer, turkeys, and groundhogs come and go freely during daylight. I’m not sure I want to know what goes on out there after dark. I think my cat knows something about that. I suspect that’s why she’s home and ready to come indoors a few hours before sunset, and that that’s why, before she goes out in the morning, she stops in the doorway, looks around the doorway to the right, and checks that the porch is clear. Her cat ears probably hear a lot that I don’t hear, and when she’s up during the night she patrols the windows.

The day lilies have burst into bloom in the last week. I planted 300 day lily sets last July. All that work is now paying off.

The tulip poplar, Liriodendron tulipifera, is one of the most common trees in the Carolina woods. It’s also one of the tallest. According to the Wikipedia article, it grows up to 165 feet tall in virgin Appalachian forests. I have a lot of them in my woods and around my house. These trees like a lot of light, so they do well at the edge of woods, or standing alone in the open.

These photos were taken from a ladder. The blooms are rarely found close to the ground.