Autumn Cut

After cutting the paths in the orchard, the verges, and the copse ten days ago, we spent a few hours this morning starting to tackle the longer grass of the orchard. This needs the solid blade on Sigrid, rather than the strimmer head, because the grass, thistles, brambles, ragwort and blackthorn is rather too tough for a nylon string. We managed to do just less than a third of the job (equating to most of the left-hand area delineated by hedge and path), and get the cut material raked up and heaped at the compost bins. That was limited by my only having half a day at home (I'm effectively working a late shift), and also by our stamina: Sigrid isn't light, or quiet, or sweet-smelling!

However, even though it's going to take another couple of stints of work, hopefully over the coming weekend, the bit that we've done does look a lot better. It's nice to have it neat going into the winter, and cutting the grass back regularly does reduce the formation of tussocks, which makes it very much less even underfoot.