Posts Tagged bush-hog
Bush-hogging the Field
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Homesteading on October 29th, 2009
Below is a shot of what the field next to the barn has looked like since we got here. We reckon it’s been at least two years since it was mowed.
Here’s another shot. The field is on the far side of the fence.
But just one hour with a tractor and a bush-hog, and here’s what it looks like now:
The little red-leafed tree you see in the shot above was growing in the weedy field. Issa used an online tree identification guide to determine that it might be a black walnut. Then again, there are a gajillion of them growing by the road, and I wasn’t under the impression walnut was that common. If it’s black walnut, that’s a pretty lucky break for us, although we’ll have to keep the pigs from uprooting it if we want to find out what it grows into.
The tractor work was $40 an hour, and money well spent if you ask me. We had planned to till the entire half-acre field and then plant a pasture mix tailored towards hogs. We only plan to have two pigs next year, and they won’t need the run of the entire field, but we figured better to plant much of anything to give the weeds some competition! It turned out that there was some really nice fescue under there, so we left it on the ground in most of the pasture and only tilled about 1/3 of the field for the hog-tailored pasture mix.
Here’s a picture of Issa spreading the pasture mix seed on the tilled ground.
Quickie: Hay, Foam, Small Engine Repair
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Homesteading on October 28th, 2009
A quick update on the undertakings at the Wallow.
After changing the blades and topping off the oil on my riding mower, the engine refuses to start. It’ll crank, but not turn over. I’m taking this as a learning opportunity. Changing the spark plug is pretty easy. I figured out how to change the oil, which was also pretty easy once I found the drain plug. I also figured out how to disassemble and clean the carburetor, but forgot the step where you have to drain the gas tank and disconnect the fuel line. When fuel started leaking out of the carb, I remembered the guy in the video saying that the carb held a small amount of fuel and it would just drain out. But the fuel kept on coming! The carb in this mower is gravity-fed; there’s no fuel pump. This means that I was just draining the fuel tank out onto the ground through the carb. Oops. I quickly re-tightened the bolt.
I climbed our 30′ extension ladder to spray wasp killer into and around the woodpecker holes, so as to kill off the wasps that the woodpeckers are likely going after. Woodpeckers or no, there are too many damn wasps in that vicinity. Must go! Then I sprayed expanding urethane foam into the holes. Tomorrow, I’ll go back up there and cut away the excess foam so it doesn’t look like our house has cancer. I’m getting more familiar with the 30′ extension ladder, but it still scares the shit out of me.
We raked up much of the hay that had been drying in the yard today. It kept getting re-rained on and then left out to dry and then re-rained on again, and I just got tired of looking at it. It was mostly dry, but still some wet, and anyway, now it’s in a big pile and covered with a tarp. The ultimate destination is to be mixed in with pig manure and turned into compost, so it won’t matter much if it’s a little bit pre-composted. It’s exciting to think that lawn clippings, which I would previously have considered to be waste, will turn into compost that will feed the garden instead.
A guy with a tractor is coming tomorrow to bush-hog the field. After that, he’s going to turn the top layer of soil for us and Issa is going to plant a pasture seed mix called, “Laugh and Grow Fat Hog Pasture Mix.” It’s a winter seed mix that contains four plants that hogs like to graze on. We were planning to put a winter grass like rye in the field anyway, just to give the weeds a little competition and to enrich the soil, but Issa found livestock-specific mixtures, and we liked that option better. If we’re going to grow something, we might as well grow something the animals can eat.
Poke (Weed?)
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Homesteading on October 21st, 2009
When I took occupancy of the Knoxville House, which we have nick-named The Wallow, it had not been mowed in at least a year. The weeds were, if not quite epic, certainly epic-lite.
The property’s riding mower was purchased with the property. It’s a little 14-HP, 40″ blade Murray. Suffice it to say, it was not designed for this level of bush-hogging. That’s not to say that it didn’t step up. Oh, it was slow going, but eventually, I mowed the whole damn yard. The mower’s blade looks like shit, but the job got done.
One of the most prolific plants in the yard was poke. Poke is recognizable by its red stems. It grows clusters of red berries, which, like many wild red berries, are poisonous to humans. In fact, most parts of the poke plant are poisonous, with the root being the most poisonous (even deadly) and the berries being the least. However, you can eat the young leaves when the plant is very small if you boil them in multiple changes of water. Not sure why you’d want to, but I guess it’s easier to grow than spinach or lettuce.
And boy, does it grow!
This poke plant has actually fallen over it has grown so tall. After I mowed, poke plants had put out new leaves in just a few days. That led me to an interesting survival strategy if you’re ever stranded in the wilderness. See, very young poke leaves are edible, but the plant can be hard to identify before the stems get their red color, by which time, it’s poisonous and you shouldn’t eat it. So instead of going to the effort of finding young poke plants, you should just find an adult, cut it off at the root, and come back in a few days. The root will have put out many little leaves for you to eat, if you didn’ die in the meantime.
That’s me with a machete, about to do battle with the poke.
BATTLE!
It was no match for me. Unfortunately, it has many relatives, scattered all over the land. I sure wish there was something it was good for to me.
-
What I'm Doing Now- Oops! No Twitter!
