I’m beginning to get a better idea about what life on a farm really entails. It’s got nothing to do with waking up every day before dawn and donning one’s Oshkosh overalls for some time in the barn. It’s not so much about unexpected and massive increases in the level of effort of what, at first blush, appear to be simple projects. It’s not even about dealing with irate neighbors who are less than enthused that the newly built goat and sheep accommodations; which, while being correctly sited from your perspective, are thought to be way too close to their bedroom window. And upwind. No, life on a farm, even a micro farm, is about more than that.

It’s about life, and death.

From last week you’ll remember that the animal part of farming was put on an indefinite hold. In lieu thereof, a plan was floated about paving the meadow in wildflowers. Our hopes were dashed when we learned that the meadow would essentially have to be scraped down to bare rock and then re-graded with an amount of high-quality topsoil the price of which would rival the cost of a moon shot. Either that or manually kill and remove every piece of vegetation currently flourishing in the meadow. Either choice seemed like too much work for the benefit.

Well. The part I didn’t happen to mention last week was that, vis-à-vis the wildflowers, I clicked the “More Information” link after I clicked the “Order Now” link. Two days after. I was on the hook for a hundred bucks worth of seeds and well and truly screwed.

So, it was on to Plan B.

Okay, I figured. They’re wildflowers so at some point in their evolution (or, as they were created by God on the Third Day, if you prefer – although why God would choose to create green flowering plants that require light for photosynthesis the day before He created light is beyond me. Must be one of those Mysterious Way things or else He got His calendar mixed up.) they must have actually been wild and able to compete with the other weeds and grasses on offer in the meadow. So let’s just let them compete. Obviously, the process was going to be a bit more involved or else where was the story? 

I had two goals. First, I had to create a seedbed in the meadow upon which our effete, limp-wristed, pathetic excuse for “wild” flower seeds would have at least a break-even chance to grow amongst the field tested – sorry, couldn’t resist – inhabitants that were already there. Indigenous plants that have survived multiple winters, the browsing deer, and God knows what else (although after His “plants first, light second” bungle I’m not too sure He’d be the one to ask). Second, I’d have to do as little work as possible.

Applying my vastly overrated and under-utilized scientific training I set out to analyze the situation. I needed to provide the new seed with a place where it could nestle for the winter; somewhere cold and dark enough to prevent premature germination but also to allow for the all-important (or so I learned from “More Information”) seed-soil contact. The purpose of this contact is to supply the necessary moisture the seed would need once it wasn’t so cold and dark, i.e. next spring.

I figured that in the “wild” most seeds just drop on the ground, some vegetation falls on top of them, and they while away the winter with no real contact with soil at all. Their seedbed is, in fact, just decades of vegetative detritus. If I could figure out how to duplicate that wilderness mulch, in just a matter of weeks, I would have it made.

Phase one was to cut the meadow down to size. No matter how I sliced it, so to speak, there was just no way around getting rid of the weeds, ferns, brambles, and grasses that were five to six feet tall in places. But mowing the meadow would produce a ton of what is commonly called “yard waste”. So, to effectively deal with this, I built two adjoining compost bins, each capable of holding about ten cubic yards of plant material. I figured I’d have more initially but, when properly composted, even the woody stems of blackberry canes break down pretty quickly. In phase two I’d sit around, cocktail in hand, and let the meadow recover for a bit. Finally, for phase three, just before winter sets in, I’d mow it again, scatter my seed upon the ground, and rake it all together to complete the genuine, synthetic, all-natural wildflower meadow.

Then it’ll be just a matter of waiting until spring to see if my theory is correct.

First things first. Out came the tractor. I fired up the engine, waited for it to warm up a bit, engaged the mower deck, and drove into the meadow where the thing promptly stalled out due to the impenetrability of the vegetation involved. I pushed the thing out of the weeds and, while cleaning the tangled stems and vines from the mower blades, reconsidered my plan. The meadow itself is not that big; maybe a half-acre or so. I had planned to cut through it in about an hour using the mower to pile the cuttings in the center. Then I would just haul it off to the compost bins, dust off my clothes, and mix up a cocktail to enjoy while surveying the results of my hard work. 

It was not to be.

After much experimentation I found that if I drove the tractor forward a couple of feet, then immediately backed up, it would cut the brushy thicket without the engine dying. I could then creep forward again and repeat the procedure until the perimeter was complete. My plan to use the mower to pile up the clippings in the middle was similarly doomed because of the density of flora. The tractor was just not powerful enough to blow a ton of Osterized browse into a pile. I tried, really I did, but it just wouldn’t work.

I divided the mini-meadow into six subsections and went to work on the first. After an hour or so I ended up hacking a perimeter and then reversed my cutting direction to blow the clippings back over the previously cut area. This removed one source of stalling potential but didn’t speed up the process at all. The result, hours later, was a uniform blanket of chopped vegetation covering the meadow to a depth of about four inches. Five more to go.

I slowly advanced into the underbrush of the second section. I carved out the perimeter, switched directions, and drove back into the field. Yeah, I thought. This wasn’t going to be bad. I cut halfway around the section and stopped. I shut down the tractor and waited. I could feel their eyes on me. Peering. Intent.

I was not alone.

I was trapped in the midst of a major ecological disaster. I was destroying the homes and livelihoods of a large number of creatures that I didn’t even know were there. It turns out that plants were not the only things residing in the understory of the meadow. There were birds. There were snakes. There were even frogs. But most of all, everywhere I looked, I saw the sleek pelts and beady black eyes of the apparently ubiquitous Meadow Vole.

Voles are these adorable little rodents which look like nothing more than a large-ish mouse with about half a tail. Sort of what you’d expect the Three Blind Mice to look like after the farmer’s wife got to them. They exist digging burrows, making piles of rocks and stones, and pulling vegetables underground along the lines of the gophers in the 1946 Warner Brothers’ cartoon The Goofy Gophers. The Vole, in short, is what is known as a “nuisance species”.

And they’ve been living in the meadow for years.

The primary outcome of their habitation is that they have left the surface of the meadow slightly less smooth than the surface of Mars. Riding the tractor, which has no suspension, was an experience akin to falling down the stairs. There were burrow entrances whose depth could be measured in feet. There were trenches cut in the surface the size of storm drains. Every square inch of the meadow was riddled with burrows, tunnels, and trenches. And everywhere I looked I could see their furry bodies darting this way and that.

I did a bit of research and found out that these smaller voles live a year or so and can reproduce faster than rabbits; which left me wondering why the little beasties haven’t, in fact, taken over the world. Well, it turns out that vole mortality has almost nothing to do with lifespan. It hinges on stupidity. The average vole perishes from any one of its numerous predators in just over a month. That is apparently the time it takes for a baby vole to grow to the point at which it can stick its tiny head out of the burrow for a better look at the owl flying low overhead. Sadly, for me anyway, this needle-pegging level of stupidity made the voles uncontrollably curious about the loud mechanical sound just outside their burrows.

I will say no more.

The meadow is now fully mown, if somewhat depleted of native fauna. I’m left to the cleanup phase which consists of an awful lot of raking and of burying casualties. Thanks to the supposedly unseasonably splendid weather we’ve been enjoying, phase one of the project will be finished shortly and the compost bins filled to overflowing. Soon thereafter, the seed will be sown and I can sit back, cocktail in hand, and wait for the coming of spring.

When I’ll find out how tasty wildflowers are to voles.