There is grass here. A lot of it. And weeds. Even in summer when the grass is kind of brown and sad it needs to be mowed. We get a break in the coldest months, but by March we had better mow every 10 days or less or we will need to get Yvon to come in with the tractor. It takes a full day to do the two orchards, the olive grove, the oak stand, the grass in front of the studios, the grass between the shortcut and the studios, and the path around the big field. This includes mowing (with our ancient Motec ride-on mower, bigger areas we can’t reach with that using a hand-mower, and then strimming/weedwacking around the trees and fences. I tend to stretch it over two or three days, starting when I stop writing around 5:00 or later in the year 6:00 and working until it gets dark, one machine at a time.
So once every 10 days I fire up the Motec “lawn tractor” that I have named Mildred after a 1970s British tv commercial nobody remembers (two old ladies driving down the highway and for some reason I don’t recall, one says “hit it Mildred” and she floors it as the car speeds away). When I open the throttle on the straight stretches and she speeds up I yell “Hit it Mildred” over the racket of the mower. I’m easily amused. When I get back from this trip it will be two weeks since I mowed, so I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow!
When we moved in, the whole place was hopelessly overgrown and needed professional farm equipment to mow. The wildflowers looked lovely, but you could hardly see the olive trees or the oaks (although it is amazing how much they have grown in two years!) A neighbour mowed the big field for us and we gave him the hay bales he created, Yvon mowed between the olives and oaks, one of the many things to be thankful for. Now we leave the meadow alone, mowing a four foot “footpath” around it and enjoying orchids and other wildflowers throughout the summer. I am, itching to throw wildflower seeds or sunflower seeds into it, but maybe we will mow it again this year. The winter just ending saw the wild boar (sanglier) taking over the meadow, leaving paths and (poop piles) as they cut across to Olivier’s half of the field the other side of the fence [I wrote about them on January 3, 2026]. I wonder if they enjoy the irony that what is now a sanctuary for them was sold to us by a major hunter who hung his catch in the attic of this house to dry.
If we keep the grass mowed, it remains green for most of the year; even the meadow freed from newly cut hay sprouted regular grass once it got the chance. So once the olive grove and oak stand was professionally cut it was up to us.
We are still tending a small farm with the back-yard tools we bought with us from New Jersey. I feel this especially with the strimmer/ weedwacker, which is battery powered and tends to swallow the green nylon string if we ask too much of it, wrapping it around the motor along with long grasses and tough stems (and if we don’t remove them it gets so hot the plastic string melts!). I have learned to start from the top of tall weeds, removing them in layers to avoid getting long stems that can strangle the motor. Clearing a patch takes patience! Yet this maybe the most essential tool. It clears grass and weeds around the trees and in corners and edges, and recently did the bulk of the work clearing the bottom and middle beds in the orchard [see March 16, 2026 and March 31, 2026]. It uses the same kind of rechargeable battery as the hedge-cutter, leaf-blower, small chain saw, and various other tools, all sharing the bank of batteries lined up on the shelf in the barn once they’ve been recharged.
Mildred the Motec riding mower came with the house, and she has been lovingly nurtured with endless gerry-rigged solutions to keep her running. She’s more than 30 years old (Walter thinks the 1980s maybe), with a Briggs and Stratton engine that just keeps on going (so far). Her front axle is a little bent so she looks cross-eyed and does not turn as easily as she did. Sadly, I think we’ll soon need to spring for Mildred II (my brother already made her name plate). It won’t be the same, and I fear we might end up with something I have a harder time using—like the fancy push mower we bought last year. It turns sharply and cuts close to the fence and it will even collect clippings for mulch, but it requires the pulling of a cord to start the engine and I’m not tall enough to start it, even when I throw my arm fully extended above my shoulder. I get a good workout trying, but so far I have not been successful so if nobody is around to start it for me I just stick with Mildred and the Weedwacker. Those two were all we had for the first two years, and together they get the job done. Do they make push mowers for smaller people?
And after a day of work the property looks lovely again, especially when the grass is still green. In my opinion, it looks lovelier full of wild flowers, but they soon go to seed and we are back to waist high straw and the need for a tractor. I do want to find an area where I can grow a wild garden of bushes and ground cover and maybe even arches and whimsy, inspired by our friend Françoise’s garden. Hers took 20 years to reach its current glory, but I’m thinking I might start small by the dead parts of the hedge so the new plants can grow into what will ultimately be holes. And we have bushes on the road side of the front courtyard that will eventually reach 10’ plus. As always, patience.
