It has been raining here almost daily for weeks and we were out of town for a bit recently. Somehow that combination got me behind on the spot spraying that usually keeps the grass from encroaching on our private road. It was looking pretty ragged and I was thinking if I just sprayed it, then it would leave a ragged, fluffy brown strip between the gravel and green grass, which would still look bad. Decided it needed edging somehow. Some of the road isn’t adjacent to grass so it wasn’t the whole road. Only about 500’ or so in two different sections separated by a tree lined section.
Had a few hours between the morning rain and afternoon rain. Too wet to bush hog, so decided to give the edging job a go.
First thought was to use a manual edger (one of those half circle blades on the end of a long pole) and hoe to not disturb large swaths of gravel. Well, that was just stupid. About 20 minutes and 25’ into that foray, I had the following realizations: anything that would remove the grass was inevitably going to disturb a good bit of gravel; it was hotter out than it first seemed; I’m no longer 22 years old; there was a lonely tractor in the shop that I was pretty sure wanted to come out to play.
Plan B. Put the box blade on the L. Ripped up the grass and displaced a bunch of gravel with it. Left it all in a pile once I got past the grassy areas. Used a hay fork to winnow the grass out of the dirt, gravel, grass mix in the pile. Ended up with a full bucket of grass and relatively clean piles of gravel in the road.
After getting the grass out of the piles, spread them back out. Ended up with a decently straight border. Planning to leave it a couple of days to let whatever comes back make itself known. Next day after that where we get 4 hours I can be reasonably confident of no rain, plan to follow up with spraying to clean up any stragglers.
Then went over to the area where there was a large, mostly collapsed chicken coop which was removed at least 20 years ago. There was a long abandoned orchard of some sort there when Dad bought the main part of the property about 1990. The cherry and apple trees died off many years ago. The only fruit trees left were two peach trees which usually had a half dozen peaches on them each year. They died a couple years ago. We left them mostly because they’re not near any of the current houses and therefore not bothering anyone (I thought). Wife mentioned a few days ago they bothered her. Pushed them out of the ground today.
Went back to shop to trade the box blade for the chipper. Chipped a few large limbs which had fallen near the houses and road recently. Chipped the remains of the peach trees as well.
Got a scoop of dirt from the dirt pile to backfill the holes left by the peach stumps. After filling the holes, cleaned up, put things away, and it started to rain again about 20 minutes after.