My son and I took a walk this afternoon to see if we could spot any interesting critters, like we did yesterday. No dice. Too sunny and too hot. The critters were all holed up. We did, however, see a neighbor plowing his fields, ready to plant corn.

Digging Things Up

Then another neighbor came by to ask if he could cut our field. He wants to cut it for hay but it needs some work before that can happen. There isn’t much grass but there is a lot of other plant life. I took a walk while he went to get his tractor to see if there were any ground nests. My hesitation with cutting the field this early is nesting bobolinks. They seem to like the adjacent fields better than ours, however, and we are clear of bobolink nests for the time being.  I did see a couple of the warbling birds just beyond our field but none were hanging out in ours.

Bobolink in the Shrubbery

So he mowed. With the big honking tractor, unlike the one we used ourselves to mow in the past, the one that now seems what one might call wee, it took less than two hours. It took us eight to ten hours with the smaller tractor. He got the job done before we knew it, waved and headed back up the road.

Upper Part of the Field

Lower Part of the Field

The gulls had a time with it, picking up the mice that tried to run away. Poor mice. This is the first of perhaps three cuts for the summer. Eventually, we hope, grass will outcompete the “weeds” and will fill in the meadow. Then, bail it and feed it to the cows over the hill.

It looks all right, and it smells great. And I can’t say I will miss the wild parsnip that was starting to get way too tall. That stuff is trouble, and I am happy to see the fat stems of that invasive plant get chopped. Let’s see some timothy take its place. That will feed some animals. Even better than the mice fed the gulls.

Like I said, poor mice.