Made it!

A nice easy ride of 4+ hours up to the Bolt Hole from the Aerie. I coaxed as much mpg from the Tundra as possible and got around 19.3 on the 220 mile trip according to the on board computer.

Although Mark had cut the grass once in my absence, it was still pretty tall and around 3 PM I broke out the mower, gassed it up and got to work. It took nearly 3 hours to do all of the lawn but that chore is now scratched off the list.

Mowing involved lots of walking. I'll have to wear an pedometer to figure out just how much some day. Until then just think of a 22" wide mower and two acres of grass. (One acre is approximately 220' x 220'. So two acres would be 220' x 440'. Let's say the mower were 24" or 2' wide for simplicity's sake. That would be 110 rows 440' long mowed. That's (let's see 110 times 440) 48,400 feet! And at 5,280 feet per mile...a little over 9 miles!? Can't be. Although it took me three hours to do it so.... And that's using a 24" width instead of the actual 22" width of the cutting deck. (And even that is really too wide as there has to be some overlap of the rows to ensure proper mowing.) Suddenly I am very tired. *(see UPDATE below)

As I was plodding behind the mower, Mark showed up. He stopped by to chat and then went to check on the two game cameras we have out. Got some nice pictures of five different bears. (There's a mama and her twins and two males that have been palling around together.) Enough bear activity behind his place down toward the stream on his side that I might have to look elsewhere for fishing opportunities. (Being a non-resident I can't just strap on a hand gun for bear protection and head into the woods. And casting is difficult if your carrying either a shotgun or an axe.)

I set another camera out behind my place with some apples and cracked corn to see what's out there. While doing so I couldn't help but notice that Mark had taken the lawn mower and gone a little crazy. There are mowed trails and areas all over the place.

I had told him that the brush hog would be back this week, but did he wait? Noooo. He had to go and cut most of the areas I was going to hit. Thank goodness he used the old mower. The one that has the small wheels and a Briggs & Stratton engine that will not die even as the rest of the mower is held together with sticks and duct tape, bolted on license plates and angle brackets. To look at it, you would think it has no right to do any cutting at all, but it just keeps chugging along.

Oh well. Tomorrow I go down the hill to pick up the brush hog. I'll have to look around to see what is left to cut but I'm sure there are some areas that need cutting left. Maybe in the afternoon I'll run a tank of gas through it to see how it behaves.

If not, there's always the chainsaw.

Right now it is time for a col shower and then to bed.

UPDATE: I forgot to allow for the buildings on the 2 acres. There's the cabin and a couple of small sheds. Say 1/2 an acre's worth when you include the plants around them. That would reduce it to 220' x 330' and the walk would have been closer to a mere 7 miles not 9. I feel better now.