Not gone fishing
Yard work to get done
I’ve been writing about some serious stuff lately. Last week I fumed about the food or recreational fishery, and a while back it was caplin stocks.
I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading on caplin, and I will, indeed, as I said a few weeks ago, get back to that topic later, before the tiny fishes are rolling on our beaches to reproduce.
Moose are far from our brains now, but in a few weeks we will know if we have a license for next fall.
Maybe now is a good time to get some target practice in, while the trout season is closed and before salmon season starts.
There’s always something to do outdoors.
Speaking of stuff to do outside in the fresh spring air. There’s always and eternally yard work that needs to get done. One cannot fish all the time, as much as I would like to. Today was a beautiful day here on the Avalon Peninsula, about 10 degrees and sunny, and not a gale of wind for a change. We do seem to be getting quite a bit of wind this spring.
Anyway, today I decided to get some work done on my grass.
I have nigh on an acre of grass and it takes quite a measure of physical and financial effort to keep it in decent order.
I don’t attempt to achieve golf-green standards. That would cut into way too much of my fishing time, and fly-rod money.
I just like it green and lush, a suitable turf for my grandkids to frolic on, as well as my daughter’s border collie. He seems to like the grass long and green for playing Frisbee.
Today was a good day to make a 2018 grass season start.
I have trees, and like all trees, they shed needles and buds. Besides that, winter winds and sleet certainly do break off a bunch of twigs and branches. The first yard task of springtime is to rake over the yard. That’s a dandy bit of exercise and it generally takes me five or six hours to do the whole yard. It gets tougher on the shoulders every year. I can’t figure out any easy or mechanized ways of accomplishing this task. Maybe some sort of attachment for my garden tractor would get the job done.
Any suggestions?
The biggest problem with growing grass here on the skinny-soiled Avalon Peninsula is acidity. Lime is the only answer, and lots of it.
Most of my grass I grew from seed. The last 10,000 square feet that I added got lots of lime from the get go.
And I keep adding more every autumn and spring. The topsoil I used was from blueberry ground and I figure that to be quite acidic for grass. I bought 3,000 pounds of powdered lime and mixed it with the soil before I seeded it. That was plenty of work with a square-top shovel and rake. It took me a full day.
Nowadays I’ m adding 500 to 1,000 pounds of lime every fall and spring. That’s on the whole area, not just the new section.
It sounds like a lot but I think it is really necessary in my neck of the woods. I missed last fall so this April it’s a full 1,000 pounds.
I decided to buy a tow-behind broadcast spreader so that I could make life a bit easier and let my tractor do most of the grunt work.
I did a few banks and around trees by hand but for the most part the tow-behind technology worked like a charm. The hopper held a full 100 pounds at a time, so 10 fill ups and I had the job done.
But I didn’t get a leg workout. That’s the downside to owning a garden tractor.
Last summer, over coffee one morning, I discovered a couple of interesting items on the classifieds.
A guy in Trinity Bay was selling both a tow-behind grass aerator, and a power rake or dethatcher. I drove over right away and bought both for a great deal. The man had gotten both items with a used tractor and hadn’t used them. This evening I decided to give both devices a try.
The purpose of the aerator is to cut small holes in the sod so that it’s easier for water, air, and nutrients to penetrate to the roots of the grass.
Soil compacts overtime, from winter snow, kids playing, and border collies. Then it’s much more difficult for the good stuff to soak down through the soil. A simple solution is to walk around your lawn and poke holes in it with a pointed stick. That is a lot of work for a big yard. I think you can buy a push-power sort of device as well, and that makes the job go more efficiently I imagine.
The tow-behind version I bought worked out splendidly.
A dethatcher is essentially an aggressive rake that you can tow behind a garden tractor. Thatch is a natural part of sod buildup, but sometimes it gets too thick. You can thin thatch out by hand raking, but it is mighty hard work. That’s what I’ve been doing for years, and I’ve had plenty sore muscles to show for it. That’s why I jumped at the chance to get that tow behind for a good price.
It’s really just a big internal combustion powered rake that you can drive. Doesn’t that sound like fun? I had a huge section of grass with way too much thatch and I cleaned it all up in a half hour. It would have taken four of five hours by hand.
I may have missed out on some good sea trout fishing today, but it does feel good to have a chunk of yard work finished up. Anyway, those sea run brown trout hardly ever bite when the sun is shining.
I’ll go fishing in the rain. I promised a piece on rain gear, didn’t I?
I will get to it eventually.
Speaking of stuff to do outside in the fresh spring air. There’s always and eternally yard work that needs to get done. One cannot fish all the time, as much as I would like to. Today was a beautiful day here on the Avalon Peninsula, about 10 degrees and sunny, and not a gale of wind for a change. We do seem to be getting quite a bit of wind this spring.