This evening, we worked on one of those very random “life on a farm” tasks that absolutely no one would even consider how, when, if, why or where this actually happens: trimming the ditches.
While our farm is certainly rural – we only live about a 1/4 mile off of the closest blacktop road. While the county is typically responsible for the maintenance there – we’re actually on the hook for maintaining the brush and wilderness that are roadside on our property.
Over the last couple of years, I have annoyingly groaned every single time I’ve left or entered our driveway. I’ve pulled out in front of our neighbors more times than anyone would ever admit. I use the stop, look and grimmace-while-you-slam-the-gas method of getting into the road because – for real – the thick brush on all sides of our driveway is a bit much.
Completely over it, I actually tried to trim this ridiculousness back last year during my second week of maternity leave. I ended up with poison ivy (or oak or sumac…no one really knows) all over my entire body. That was super cool – read: miserable – while taking care of an infant.
This year, though, I was on top of it. I’ve been eyeballing it, planning and scheming to knock it all back while it’s still dormant from the winter. When Aaron got home from working on the flip house, he found me in the ditch with a weed whacker – handling it.
He grabbed a beer and the chain saw and came to “help.”
Between the two of us – we managed to take care of most of the trimming within about 45 minutes. Naturally, there is still a bit more work to do to cut down a couple of trees, fix up the fence line and mow the dormant grasses – but it’s already in way better shape simply having a lot of the overgrown shrubs and smaller trees out of the way.
Of course, no good deed goes unpunished – and I can already tell I’m covered in poison (something) again. It’ll be another month of itching to pay the price for attempting to complete this chore for the second year in a row.