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   Each summer, I harvest the hay from the farm for a minimal cash crop and to keep the fields open and looking good. If they are not mowed or brush cut each year, the surrounding forest would take over the farm. It is amazing to see the number of oak and hickory trees growing throughout the fields in just one season. I do not mow and bale it myself as I do not have the acreage to justify the expense of the equipment required to do the job.

   From year to year, the topography of the land changes. Ditches are formed and low spots are filled in. My fields are all hilly and irregular shaped. Driving around can be dangerous if one were to drop the front of their tractor in an unseen ditch. I decided to brush cut the perimeter of the fields over the weekend to outline safe places to mow. The neighbor that does my baling has been over the property each year for the past several years but there have been changes and I am sure he has not memorized every ditch and washout in every field he mows each year.

   I started off on my small tractor and brush cutter with a full tank of fuel and an optimistic attitude. The attitude is necessary as nothing will tear up machinery faster than brush cutting. There are only three rocks on the farm but if you forget where one is, the brush cutter will find it. Clearing along the edge of the timber, a person hopes to find fallen limbs or trees by feeling them as you drive over them rather than by hitting them with the cutter. It is much better to move them with the loader than chopping them up with the brush cutter. The cutters have been known to not survive hitting a tree stump hidden in the tall grass.

   After an hour or so, I decided to stop for a break and a drink. I shut down the tractor in the shade of an old oak tree and reached for my bottle of water. I know better to put my water bottle in the cup holder. Anything will bounce out of the poorly designed holder in the first few feet. I had secured my water in a spot beside the seat. That apparently is not a secure location either as my only source of water was gone, somewhere along the mile or two of winding paths I had created. A few trees had blown down into the field, and a ditch had eroded over the winter. I pushed the fallen trees out of the field and mowed around the ditch, making a mental note to come back and fill it in when the hay is out.

   When I got to Twin Sluices, I discovered the crossings were still quite wet from the recent rains. I contemplated giving up and going home but thought there is no challenge in that. I know a guy that has a bigger tractor than mine that could probably pull me out if I got stuck. I put it in high range, four-wheel drive and posi-traction. At full speed, I made a run for it. With considerable spinning and sliding around, I made it. I hope it dries out before my baler man has to go through there. I do not know if he knows somebody with a bigger tractor to pull him out.

   Cutting along the edge of the timber back in the far corner of the farm, a hen turkey got up about ten feet away from the tractor and ran away. Turkeys will generally fly when spooked from close range like that so I thought she might have a nest. I jumped down from the tractor and went to check it out. I made a couple of steps and baby turkeys went scrambling through the grass in every direction. I could not tell how many there were, but there were quite a few.

   To my surprise, I made it back across Twin Sluices. Finishing up on the last field, I had less than a quarter of a mile to go when I hit a tree stump. It took out the shear pin in the gear box which ended my day of brush cutting. I was getting ready for a break anyway and the fields are more ready for hay season than when I started.

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