On the right path...

When Don and I first bought Hickahala Ranch it was nothing but open fields and a few acres of wooded bottom land. We loved the way it looked and discussed leaving it like that...natural. Of course, we soon discovered that open grassy fields are NOT natural here and, if left unmowed, our fields would quickly become woods!

As the years have passed by it seems like Don kept mowing more and more "lawn" until he was spending all of his two days off on the lawn mower. This year, he's finally come to the "green side". I've urged him time and again to bush hog instead of mow, to let the horses into the fenced in front yard from time to time and to let me put the goats in the back yard. I seriously doubt that it was my nagging that changed his mind. I reckon he finally just got tired of mowing because this summer he's decided to just mow paths!

He's keeping the front yard mowed around the fence and about ten feet out from the house. He mows me a path to the garden and one to the pond. Pictured above is his path to the woods behind the house. Everything else is left to grow. I think it's great! No more wasting gas (I hate petroleum products and America's dependency on them), no more wasting time on the lawnmowers and no more wasting money constantly fixing the blasted things! Nope, Don is now on the right path...the "green" path that I've been trying to steer him onto for a very long time.

The benefits are amazing. We have more birds around the house...cardinals, hummingbirds, yellow finches and little Indigo buntings, to name a few. The barn swallows raised their family on the back porch and have decided to stay for a while. Some evenings I step outside and there are dragonflies by the hundreds hovering over the lawn. They attract bats, which I dearly love to watch swooping low to catch mosquitoes and other insects. The taller grass also attracts grasshoppers, which in turn help to feed the garden spiders that are beginning to build their webs around the house.

Don has told me to sell the riding mowers in my mom's annual yard sell in October. What mowing needs to be done will be done with the push mower or bush hogged with the tractor next year. It's just one tiny step on the path to a more environmentally friendly farm and I couldn't be happier!

Hot house flowers? No thanks!

Today I had to venture off the farm to do my grocery shopping and errands, a task I dislike, but especially dislike on Saturday. So, to cheer myself up I thought about buying some flowers at the grocery store. However, once I walked in the door I changed my mind.

As I stood there looking at the glads (which were on sale this week), the roses, daisies, etc. all I could think about was how harmful these lovely flowers were to our environment. Every time I see commercially grown flowers I remember an article I read on the amount of rain forest lost to flower farms. On top of that is the amount of fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, nematocides, etc. that are used to raise flowers...all of which are harmful to the environment and human health.

So, I kept walking. I have lovely flowers right here at home, courtesy of Mother Nature. They are as natural as can be...not a bit of chemical fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, nematocides, etc. made these flowers grow. Nope, all it took was some dirt, some rain and some bright sunshine. It doesn't get any better than that!

Now I have a lovely bouquet of orange butterfly weed and white Queen Anne's Lace. It only took a few minutes to go gather the flowers and didn't cost me a penny. No fuel was used to ship the flowers to me, nor did I have to get in my car to go buy them. Nope, I just walked out the door on my own two feet, took a few stalks from each plant (I never strip a plant because I want it to continue to grow and be healthy), thanked Mother Nature and am now enjoying my lovely vase of wildflowers.

I hope you have a lovely Saturday. Take a moment to step outside and enjoy Mother Nature's beauty. Bring a bit back into the house to brighten it up. Mother Nature won't mind. She likes to share!