Drivel - Maintenance on a Farm

It's been really busy here just doing maintenance .... grass mowing primarily. Maintenance is  something I've seldom seen addressed on various farm blogs. I guess because it isn't an exciting topic. I agree that there isn't anything exciting about mowing grass, chopping down overgrowth, pulling weeds. But it's one of the many jobs that just needs to be done. 

By far this has been the most aggressive regrowth year for grass and other vegetation since we moved here. This summer has been both warmer and wetter than most. It's teaching me a very good lesson....be sure to factor in maintenance time into my time budget. Plus all that extra gasoline! 

I'm taking advantage of the extra harvested greenery to produce more pallet growing boxes. Accumulating a cubic yard of organic material is quite a task, but all these extra clippings and cuttings are helping. Plus I'm using the abundant mulch to help create beds for growing more sugar cane, sweet potatoes, pipinolas, bananas, and pumpkins. Getting enough mulch has been an problem up until now. 

But now my riding lawnmower is down. Egads! But I kind of expect it to be offline frequently (I had been warned before buying one to expect to have to make frequent repairs of one sort or the other), so it's not a surprise, just an annoyance. I decided to change the blades because they were worn to the point of affecting how well the clippings were entering the catcher system. I had already sharpened them in situ several times. When attempting to remove one of the blades, the bolt stripped. Now I have to drop the mower deck, remove the mandrel, replace the spindle, and get a new bolt. Drats. I hate removing the mandrel because of not only the work, but the bolts tend to break off. 

I'm back to using a self propelled common lawnmower for now until I have the time to repair the rider.