shredding – The Hermits' Rest

It was a fun day for both Lee and our equine buddies. Lee got to shred (that means mow using a shredder pulled behind a tractor) the two pastures the horses haven’t been on, since the grass has seeded.

Ready to shred (no, the hay forks have nothing to do with shredding)

It was time for the horses and Fiona to switch pastures anyway, and I wanted the extra annoying giant cockleburs mowed down before they made seeds this year. I’ve learned a lesson with them! Lee loves to shred, so once he got help attaching the shredder, off he went.

To get there, I had to open the gate, do of course everyone went out to see their old pasture with new grass in it.

Where the round bales had been, lots and lots of Johnson grass had grown up (indicating that was not the greatest hay). It was taller than Dusty!

Dusty demonstrates the height of Johnson grass. Note that all horses look fat.

Everyone started to go to town on that dang grass, but I knew it wouldn’t be there long enough to hurt anyone, because Lee was shredding away.

He says at first, every time he went by the horses they’d run around and kick up their heels. By the fourth time he had to encourage them to move. Typical!

It’s funny but after the initial thrill of seeing their hill and the hay bale locations, they went back to normal. By feeding time they were all in their pens looking for their feed and supplements.

Vlassic says he also appreciates regular meals.

Other than that, today’s excitement included seeing a bobcat cross the road right in front of me (my son saw it in the same spot last week, holding a rabbit), watching barn swallow fledglings on their first flights, and being visited by some purple martins while we were sitting by our pool. Their song is so lovely—I can see why my friend Donna loves them so much.

Hey, here’s a quick update on the things going on here at the Hermits’ Rest. For one thing, a lot of mowing has been going on and a lot of shredding. The appeal of using the shredder on really high grass is that it can be done in the air-conditioned tractor. It’s good to report that all along the sides of the road and the area on the other side of the arroyo is now shredded.

Two benefits to that are 1) you can see if cars are coming from the left as you leave the driveway, and 2) the ragweed has been cut down, eliminating some distress for the resident humans.

Everything is very neat and smooth now that the wildflowers set seed and were mowed.

Well, there are still a few flowers to enjoy. Yay.

The front-end loader, who’d been grounded for a while due to a giant hole in her ancient battery, is back and huffing and puffing again, with shiny new batteries. That will make moving fencing supplies a lot easier. It was sort of rough with the little tractor.