Last year Steve and Tim decided to cut down on the mowing in the Commons area of the farm and move the prairie in toward the center. They planted large, curved areas of wildflowers and mowed it to keep the weeds down. This year the flowers have come up in abundance. We have lots of yarrow and aasters right now, and we’re on the verge of a gorgeous display of black-eyed Susans and cone flowers. Unfortunately, there are a lot of weeds in there, particularly hoary allysum. It’s not an unattractive weed, but it will crowd out the natives if we don’t get it out of there.
Thus, we held the first communal chore hour I can remember in my four years here on the farm. Sophia and Chloe are home from college and put on some funky clothes (everything is the ’90s with them) and pitched in. We gathered at 9 a.m. and Steve gave us a rundown on the weeds (hoary alyssum, sweet clover and big, velvet-leaved mullein, mostly) and we commenced to pulling. Thanks to the recent rains, the ground was pretty soft and they came up easily. With seven of us, we moved pretty quickly and in 90 minutes had the worst area done.
We whined a bit, and eventually when we took a water break we realized we didn’t want to go back to it. Mostly, though, it was satisfying and a good community experience. Steve hauled off an entire dump box of weeds to the compost pile in the tree nursery.
Looking out over it today, it is sort of alarming how much is left to do, but also astonishing how good the area we completed looks. Steve will go back over it and scatter more flower seed where we disturbed the dirt. And hopefully this is not more than a few years’ annual project which, combined with burning, will make for a lovely prairie.
Here is Wrigley the dog amid the wreckage. He was of no help, but loved being around all the people.
Who is the other pooch not identified in the first photo? 🙂 Great post, Susan–I hope you relished the sense of accomplishment and toasted yourselves.