2 August 2024

Most of the tall grass got cut yesterday, and I would feel comfortable driving my mower over the rest. On Monday I’ll likely finish what I started with the weed wacker, since the mower just got fixed I’d like to baby it for a little bit. Though I did use the mower to cut the forest ground, not the woody part, but where I’ve cleared before that had begun to over grow. Around January I’ll try to change the mower to mulching blades and clear more forest floor. There’s bigger machinery I could use except bigger cuts means more collateral damage. As I was clearing the forest the first time I was careful to avoid a lot of vines that I liked for the aesthetic and now that they’re growing I can see those vines are muscadine grapes, it’s a good thing I wasn’t cutting wildly. What I noticed while trimming the grass is the sound an engine makes when it’s overwhelmed, it’s happened with the mower before where I’m going too fast over too much grass and it shuts down. It’s interesting to build a relationship with a machine that I can hear it complaining, then I can take things easier. During my time cutting, I was working on my technique to see what is best. My hypothesis is it’s best to do a sort of sawing motion on the left side, though it’s not yet mastered and there were times I was swinging wildly out of exhaustion. There was also a need to continuously switch hands on the trigger and thus what side I hold the trimmer on. After I was done my hands continued to feel the shaking like I was still holding the machine for the better part of the day. It was a good days work and very satisfying to be able to walk around there again, I never like owning an area that’s inaccessible.