About the cover photo: It took me three attempts of between 4 and 5 days each to get into the spot where this photo was taken. On the first two trips I suffered some very painful injuries. This spot is in the Baker River drainage in North Cascades National Park. Do you know the name of the mountain?

Converse hightops on my feet, I traverse the North Cascades in pursuit of my life project to walk into every high lake or pond mapped in the Skagit River watershed. The upper Skagit Valley near Marblemount, WA is my home and has been home to my family since 1888. I have come to feel that the culture of this place, like the culture of much of rural America, is misunderstood by an increasingly urban population and threatened by economic depression. I would like to share the stories of this place and the people who call it home. Through my stories and images of these mountains, my goal is to help others understand and respect both the natural resources and the people of the North Cascades.


Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Mowing Pasture Weeds

Much of the last two weekends I spent mowing the pasture at the home farm. I ordinarily make hay on this pasture but the ground is played out and needs amendments, mainly a dose of lime and some fertilizer.

So I moved the cows back down onto this pasture in an effort to control the weeds. This seemed to work somewhat on some weed species but the buttercup (Ranunculus acris) seems to have increased significantly. This species produces compounds that are toxic so the cows avoid eating them. In grassland or range management terms, this species is called an “increaser” because livestock won’t eat it so its population increases under grazing.

Fortunately, when this species of buttercup is cut the toxic compounds volatilize (evaporate) and the cows will then eat it. This was my goal. Cut the buttercup before it got a chance to increase even more. I have heard it said that buttercup is not safe for stock under any circumstances, including in hay but I know a lot of people, myself included who feed buttercup infested hay with no apparent ill effects. So I will take my chances.

The mower I used is an old John Deer No. 5 sickle bar mower. A bar with a set of triangle shaped teeth mounted on it slides through a another fixed bar with serrated edges or ledger plates attached where the teeth slide through. The grass is guided into the cutting edges by longer guide teeth. There are probably a lot of mowers that would have been better for this job but this is the only one I have. It has been cobbled together in order to work on the Case tractor, but for what it is, it works well. As with a lot of farm equipment, these mowers are very good at cutting off fingers or other appendages as well as grass, so one has to be careful when using them. 

I spent a big part of the previous weekend mowing one section of the field and a good part of Saturday of this past weekend mowing the remaining section.

This past Sunday I walked up the Cow Heaven trail. This will be the subject of my next post. 


Starting a swath. The yellow buttercup is faintly visible. The cows may not have eaten much of it but they did manage to trample quite a bit.



The cows sometimes stand right in the way as the tractor approaches but always move well before they are in any danger. 


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