This weekend was fun - I hope you can say the same. My sister and Mom came out for a visit. Saturday morning we took them up to the farm - Mom had seen some of it, my sister had never been there. She oohed and AAhed and ran around identifying all the wild flowers and trees - turns out we may have hazel nuts and hickory nuts as well come Fall. We later sent them to the Glimmerglass Festival on Saturday for a double bill - Camelot, which they loved, and The Flying Dutchman which was not liked as well as the first one (to put it mildly).
After my darling husband got back from rehearsal - he will be playing Leontes in A Winter's Tale at the Franklin Stage Company in a few weeks - we took kids and dogs and went to the farm. We had more mowing to do, and since we have such steep hills, he wanted another set of eyes, so in case he rolled the tractor there would be someone there to notice and call the paramedics! The boys contented themselves catching frogs, and our daughter walked/was dragged by the three dogs. There was a great deal of me standing or walking around trying to keep the boys and the tractor in my line of vision.
Eventually, it came time to try mowing the high pasture. This is a misnomer. It is not a high pasture, it is the highest hill on the property before crossing the stream and heading up the mountain and into the woods. My husband went down the steepest part of the hill, and I could not hear him or see him, so Abi and I started trotting down, just as he was heading up on the other side. He later mentioned that there were a few dicey moments where he even considered praying! Great...
I had not been on the tractor at all except the first day when we were trying to fix the PTO. So, at the top of the high pasture, he got off and told me to do a few passes. (Let's be clear here, I was going sideways across the flat-ish top of the hill, not down the "do or die" slope). It was interesting. There is no gas pedal, just a hand controlled throttle. The higher the rpm, the better the bush hog works. I found it tricky to see, so I tended to mow standing up - which also makes for a less sweaty backside! Oh, and did I mention that there are really no brakes? Yes, we are going to be working on that next!! It was fun, but scary, and will take some getting accustomed to. Still, we are starting to get the hang of things and the place is not completely going to seed - a good thing, I'd say.
After my darling husband got back from rehearsal - he will be playing Leontes in A Winter's Tale at the Franklin Stage Company in a few weeks - we took kids and dogs and went to the farm. We had more mowing to do, and since we have such steep hills, he wanted another set of eyes, so in case he rolled the tractor there would be someone there to notice and call the paramedics! The boys contented themselves catching frogs, and our daughter walked/was dragged by the three dogs. There was a great deal of me standing or walking around trying to keep the boys and the tractor in my line of vision.
Eventually, it came time to try mowing the high pasture. This is a misnomer. It is not a high pasture, it is the highest hill on the property before crossing the stream and heading up the mountain and into the woods. My husband went down the steepest part of the hill, and I could not hear him or see him, so Abi and I started trotting down, just as he was heading up on the other side. He later mentioned that there were a few dicey moments where he even considered praying! Great...
I had not been on the tractor at all except the first day when we were trying to fix the PTO. So, at the top of the high pasture, he got off and told me to do a few passes. (Let's be clear here, I was going sideways across the flat-ish top of the hill, not down the "do or die" slope). It was interesting. There is no gas pedal, just a hand controlled throttle. The higher the rpm, the better the bush hog works. I found it tricky to see, so I tended to mow standing up - which also makes for a less sweaty backside! Oh, and did I mention that there are really no brakes? Yes, we are going to be working on that next!! It was fun, but scary, and will take some getting accustomed to. Still, we are starting to get the hang of things and the place is not completely going to seed - a good thing, I'd say.
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