I can hear the grass grow

Ever hear someone say “My grass is growing so fast I can hear it?” Let me tell you that when 57 acres is growing like that, they can hear it in the next state. I’m scared to go into the cemetery alone at night because I’m afraid I won’t come out because of the grass. Normally we try and mow every 7 to 10 days and every 2 weeks at the end of the summer. We trim the stones every other time. Right now we are getting hot temp’s during the day [88 to 98] and rain every evening and these are ideal growing conditions for our grass. I was just now looking at one of the sections we mowed last Friday and it should have been mowed this Friday so we have not mowed it in 9 days. Most of it is 8” and the faster growing grass varieties are up to 12” tall. This it the maximum our commercial mowers can handle without switching over to farm equipment. I looked at one grave that the owners decided to help us out and fertilized. We will have to get a good run with the mowers just to get through it. In the picture you will notice that the part of the tier on the right has just been mowed to 3 inches and you can compare that to the grass on the left. It is 8 to 12 " tall. The plant in the far left is a weed and they really grow good in hot weather along with some rain. Today I went after a type of yellow leaf strife that is a weed and quickly repopulates it self. I have never seen it before in the cemetery and some of it I am cutting is between 4 and 5 feet tall. I cut it down to 6” and then hit it with Roundup because I am unable to pull it out of the ground. We also have another weed that has sprung up the past two years and we need to get it out. I don’t know what it is but it is also growing in the Zoya grass areas. Those of you that know grasses know how serious this is because no weeds can survive in Zoya grass areas as it is so dense. Tomorrow will be another Roundup day because I will have to just crawl along on the grass, finding the weed and zapping it with Roundup and trying not to get very much collateral damage.

Since I started this posting, we have lost three days of mowing and weed trimming. The heat wave is getting to people and some of them are dieing and need to be buried. The good news about the heat wave is it is causing the grass to finally stagnate in growth. Maybe we can get caught up.

The guy on the mower is my son-in-law Michael who works for us two days a week. At his real job he works 4 10’s or so. Works out great for us. The mower is an Xmark Lazer Z, 48” zero turn. This one has been on line five years now and this Spring we had to drop a new engine in it. It just got tired and died. On good runs they mow at 9mph and turn on dime. You might notice just how close he is to that pink stone and at 9mph he is being very vigiliant. If you lose concentration and hit that pink stone at 9 mph, even your teeth hurt. Maybe next time I can tell you all about Bamboo that we can’t get rid of or stop.