Cutting weeds

I had to wait for two weeks before I could start this job, because the weather conditions weren't ideal for the process. We've bought an Al-Ko bush & weed cutter for 39.990 HUF (~180$) to clean my property. This machine can work properly only when the vegetation you want to cut is dry. No pissing rain, heavy dew, etc. Otherwise the stems of the plants will bend around the axle of the blade and chocking the machine. The good thing is I've got a bushcutter blade and a weedcutter string also with the machine. First I needed the bushcutter. The land looked like a mini-jungle. Tumbleweeds (Salsola kali L.),  Ragweeds (Ambrosia artemisiifolia), Common milkweeds (Asclepias syriaca), Sandburs (Cenchrus incertus), Chamomile (Matricaria Chamomilla), Vetch (Vicia sativa), White goosefeet (Chenopodium album) and many more were thriving on my land. Some people think weeds are bad thing. Believe it or not, you see it wrong. First of all they are brilliant indicators of the soil conditions. For example Hungarian Chamomile likes alkaline soil. There are plenty of chamomile at the back of my land. Thus the soil must be salty over there. At the front there are lots of vetch on my land. Vetch belongs Legumes. It likes loose, sandy soil, but on other hand very good nitrogen fixing plant. Secondary lots of them are herbals. Some of them are edible. For example, the taste of white goosefoot is similar to spinach. It is high in Calcium, protein and iron. They are families in Hungary whose would have starved to death in WWII. if white goosefoot weren't common in their areas. Last but not least every weed is protecting your soil from erosion whilst the land is not in use. The only thing you have to do is cut or unroot the vegetation a season before you want to use your land and leave the crop of plants dying for green manure. Than you will get all the minerals and nutrients back for spring. Unfortunately there are so many bloody idiot in bureaucracy whose haven't a damn clue what is the purpose of weed in Nature and how Mother Earth operates. Therefore you have to keep your land neat. You are not allowed to let weeds grown on your property. Otherwise you should expecting a nice fee (up to 70.000$). So, I went to my property and started cutting the bush on that one acre...
Well, with a foot wide blade it is a hard job to cut down such a huge field. The major thing is you should keep the blade close to the ground and parallel. Furthermore you should avoid bumping into any hard objects. Such as peebles, rocks, any pieces of metal, laths, etc. But, in that deep vegetation you have no idea what the next inch brings you. I was walking around methodically on the property before I started to run the engine, but I couldn't see too much. Thus the bushcutting mission ended up bumping into mounds, laths, old fence wire, little rocks, concrete slabs, stubs, etc. Every time I bumped into something the machine slapped back on my shoulder and wrist. At the end of the day I couldn't feel the right side of my upperbody, where the machine was hanging all day, and my waist ached like never before. No surprise, just the machine itself weighs 7,8 kg (17 pounds). Can you imagine that someone hits you with 17 pounds everytime you move wrong...for six and a half hours? Only one third of the land was done. F*** me. Six and a half hours sound a lot, but there are sections where you can't do it fast, you have to refill the petrol, have a lunch, get the blood back to your palm. So, don't bitching on me. Try it first. Even I couldn't hear properly when I went for dinner. Just a monotone noise was in my head. Like someone replaced my brain with a deep-toned coffee grinder. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. That's a damn hard job...and dirty like hell. Oh, if you do it you must wear protection. Bushcutter is not a joke. Especially when it hits a glass bottle or a piece of concrete. Protect your hands and face with certified protective boots, gloves and a mesh mask. Wear thick clothes you do not feel sorry for.

Meanwhile I was cutting weeds I saw loadsa sand lizards. Hope I did cut neither of them. Not just because they are strictly protected animals, but I love them. Plus they eat tons of everything which moves. Competitiors to Chinese. :) Ok. Not everything. They eat mostly insects, larvae and moths. So, this is good if you want to get rid of insects on a natural way in your garden. They are also good indicator, that the microclimate moister at your land but also gets loadsa sunshine and probably there are plenty of natural cover for these little sunbath-loving creators. They have many enemies, such as crows, hawks, magpies, jays, grouse, storks, chicken, ducks, martens and snakes.

Ok, here is how it looked like when I started cutting the vegetation. You can notice that weed reaches my mom's hip on the picture below. She is 169 cm (5' 6")! Click on the pics.

We had to wallow in a meter (3 feet) high weed whilst we were doing the fence.

It took me three sundays to look like this

...and this

...and this.

You can see on the last photo that 1/4th of the land hasn't got to finish. The weather was always rainy or when the day was sunny I had to work. Finally we got to the point when all the weeds scattered their seeds and turned to brown. So, there was no reason to cut them anymore. I will dig that part at spring...

Oh, and that is what's left from the bushcutter blade:

Compare edges to the original at the top of this posts