I was awake at 5AM this morning, and it only took one YouTube video about medieval scything to get me up and send me out the door chasing g the tall grass along the side of the road before the sun rose. I only cut one tenth of an acre before the sun peaked up over the eastern mountains. It is enough grass for a couple of days of feeding, and puts off the purchase of hay for a little bit longer.
While cutting it was easy to imagine parents of the past scolding their children for leaving strips of grass uncut as they passed. On second thought, I wonder if they said it was okay, as those would drop some seed soon, helping to prepare the field for next year? It is hard to know exactly what the conversations would have been in the practical sense, so the chore has to be done time and again to really master it, and get into the mindset. People were not just stupid dolts then, and the chore would have been, much like all aspects of life, mastered.
Knowing that the people of the time tended towards piety, or were at least led to guilt, it is easy to see how the metaphors of death and God were woven into the daily chores.
Back in for breakfast and two cups of coffee as I was joined soon by the rest of the family to start our day off together. Missus began with working in the herb garden while I lent her a hand at moving some potted bushes to the back border of the space, gathering some fallen grass up, and bringing out the box with solar lights in it.
After finishing up the day’s work in the herb garden I went out back and started watering the trees, and I removed the fire ring that had grass growing up all around it, which made it impossible to see. I used a pitchfork to find all the stone, and pull them up, but once I found the perimeter of the ring, I ran down the grass around it with the riding mower, to make it easier to see where I was working, and less intimidating. Once everything was loaded, I took it to separate it out to a stone pile next to the granary and a compost pile next to the llama pen. Some things went to the bins for collection. The whole fire ring removal was a fair amount of work by itself. Time was, it would have been about half of my day’s work, but today it was less than a quarter, and I never got bone sore like I used to. I got tired. But that was fine. I had to sit and soak that in, because for once, I was able to get a lot of work done, and I was not sore for it.
There were various other chores that I got to today, too. But those are the highlights. We are expecting company tomorrow when our oldest comes to visit. That will be a highlight all in itself.