Cutting That Big Unkempt Field-- Without Starting a Conflagration

Let’s talk lawn tractors and blazing (that’s really the wrong wored here) a path through your property. To be specific, let’s talk about tending that unsightly two or three acre patch of weeds you can see beyond the fence of you house’s lot, but which your grudgingly paying taxes on year after year.

            The technical term for that piece of land is “rough field” but it has some other names like: “Untended, festering rattle snake patch,” “fire hazard field” and “that damn field.”

            Admit it, with enough coffee on a weekend morning you’ve thought “today is the day I do something about that damn field.”

            But you discover your yard tractor is low on gas and there’s none in the cans in your barn, or you just don’t want to siphon unleaded regular from you boat’s fuel tank before 8 in the morning. If you’re a little concerned about cutting the field safely, put those fears aside for a moment, brothers and sisters, start “Smedly” the tractor, put it in third gear and motor up to the field.

Some basic thoughts on rough field mowing:

1.                  Stay hydrated. Find a way to carry one gallon of water or more on your tractor, even if that means you use bungee cords to hold the water container to the back of your tractor’s seat.

2.                  Slather on the sunscreen and wear a hat. If you suffer from allergies a bandanna makes a stylish mask. Dark glasses not only will protect your eyes from irritants, they also compliment the image of the “bandit gardener.”

3.                  Do take  your cell phone, in the unlikely event you have to call 911 to summon professional fire fighters to put out an accidental brush fire.

4.                  Check the oil level in your tractor and tire pressure. Top off your fuel.

5.                  Try to cut your field with blades that are still sharp.

6.                  Make sure the guide wheels on the front of your deck move freely

7.                  Clear the pulleys, belts and discharge port of all foreign material

8.                  Disconnect and remove the bagger and chute assembly

9.                   Start cutting in the morning before it gets hot. Do not cut a dry field in the middle of the day when it’s hot.

10.             Mow with a plan in mind

11.             Remember the fire triangle: air; fuel and heat.  Break any one of the legs on this triangle and you stop a fire before it spreads.

I start cutting big fields by making several; diagonal passes through the field. This gives me a chance to see the lay of the land, spotting rocky out croppings I want to avoid.  I cut with my blade set to one or two inches. Once I’ve made my diagonal passes, I begin cutting rows.  When I intersect one of my diagonals, I slow down, lower the deck until I see that I’m hitting dirt and I continue forward for six or seven feet, creating a patch of earth that’s devoid of all fuel.  I do this ever couple of rows, thus creating “safe spots” I can retreat to in case of an accidental fire.

As you mow, remember that your tractor most likely has a “dead man” switch. If you get off your tractor when it s running, the engine and the tractor stops. Generally, the longer your yard tractor’s engine has been running, the hotter its muffler (most often located underneath it engine above or in front of its front axle) will be. After about one hour of use the muffler will be red hot, producing more than enough heat to ignite tinder dry weeds. If you need to stop, pull into one of the safe spots you’ve created and shut the motor off.

Direct contact with a red-hot muffler is just one of several ways dry grass can be ignited. A much more common method of ignition is radiant heat from your muffler as it sits over combustible material. A fully fueled tractor parked over a blazing patch of grass isn’t a pretty site. Using a safe spot that’s been cleared to bare mineral earth to stop your tractor is a very safe strategy for mowing rough fields.

Over the years I’ve seen approximately five fields that burned while someone was cutting thee dry grass. Universally, the person mowing assumes the fire started by the blade sparking against a rock or a piece of metal that’s laying in the field.  But when you walk the burned field what you often find is a fire blackened rectangle—positive proof that the fire was started by direct contact of fuel and a red-hot muffler, or by radiant heating of tinder by a muffler.

If you mowing and accidentally start a fire act quickly.  Fire is stopped quickly by disrupting any one of it’s three primary requirements: heat, air and fuel. The quickest way to do  this is to  pour the water you’re carrying on your tractor on the center or spreading edge of the fire and then using your size 13EEE boots to stomp out the embers.  Or, since you’ve been drinking water or coffee all morning pee on the fire (but do remember what you’ve just read about the dangers of radiant heating).

I mow fields in third gear. It’s a slow enough speed setting that I can easily control the tractor and low enough so that most of my lawn tractor’s power is going to the blades, not the wheels. Also, until I’ve learned the topography of a field, I keep on hand resting on the blade height adjustment lever, in case I have to raise the blades to clear a patch of rocky ground.

It’s best to mow up and down hills. Try to avoid mowing steep fields in a concentric pattern. While most lawn tractors have low centers of gravity, you can tip them over. Because lawn tractors have low center of gravities they are f=safer for rough field cutting than zero turn, riding mowers based on brake steering, which have much higher centers of gravity and are prone to tip-over accidents when used to cut hilly fields.

Do take the time to cut under stands of trees. But remember that tree roots push rocks to the surface.  Before you cut under trees, park your lawn tractor in a safe spot, dismount and thrown blown down limbs out of your path.

Late spring –while there’s still residual water stored in weeds, is a good season to mo a rough field.  The middle of summer, when it’s hot and there’s not a decigram of moisture in the wild grasses or in the air is not a good time.

Cutting a one-acre rough field should take less than two hours and it’s time you can spend thinking how you can landscape your property or make it more fire safe, if you live in the back country. Either way, it’s task you shouldn’t be afraid to do yourself and as you do it you’ll come to understand the topography of your property and the benefits of a great power tool—your basic riding mower.

Random Thoughts on Improving the Overall Experience of Field Mowing:

            If members of your family suffer from allergies or asthma make sure you close all of the windows on the side of your house facing the field you’re cutting.  You can also cut down on the amount of particulate solids bowing into your house by running a soaker hose between the fields your cutting and your house. The fine water spray will cut down on grass seeds and other particulate solids carried into your house by winds and breezes.

            I also like to run a water hose from the nearest hose bib to a long length of coiled hose near the boundary of the field I’m cutting and my house lot. I’d rather be safe than sorry.

            As you mow, be aware of disturbing creatures like rattlesnakes, ugly ass spiders, and the like. I’m not the least bit ashamed to admit that I’ve minced a few buzztails and decapitated the occasional gopher cutting untended fields.

Aftere you’ve cut your field a couple of times, don’t be surprised if one or more neighbors with similar unkempt fields stop by and just happen to ask how much you’d charge for cutting their field. In my family my Dad, Boardie Forbes a dozer operator, called this source of income “runner money.” The current cost for cutting a two-acre field with a tractor and a brush hog ranges between $100 and $150. Besides, cutting a field can be fun and it beats watching the History Channel in the mid-morning on a Saturday.

            Finally, the need to regularly cut a big field is one of the best reasons I can think of for buying a lawn tractor with a 46-inch deck, a two cylinder V-Twin engine, a parasol sunshade and a built-in drink holder. Besides, cutting a field is a good way to work on your tan.

            Happy tractoring and do try to keep your machine’s wheels on the ground, the blades in contact with grass and the chaff flying away in the breeze.—Jim Forbes 05/10/2008.