Four-legged weed-whackers

Three years ago, you may recall, we participated in a county program to reduce underbrush in wooded areas as part of fire-mitigation efforts.

The portion of our property cleared by the crews was wildly overgrown and very, very steep (this section later became our "sacrifice pasture"). The crew did a beautiful job of clearing out the underbrush. After that, we were contractually obligated to maintain the property in a cleared condition.

During this process, we mentioned to the county official that we planned to do this with livestock. She was delighted and said it's one of the best ways to maintain a cleared area.

So here we are, three years later. The other evening, we walked below the sacrifice pasture and remarked how beautifully our four-legged weed-whackers are helping in this endeavor. (That's the corner of our barn on the center-right edge of the photo.)

By contrast, there is a half-acre parcel immediately adjacent to our sacrifice pasture owned by an absentee owner. This parcel hasn't had the benefit of either the county program or livestock maintenance. As a result, his section of land is still a tangled mess of underbrush.

Fortunately, for fire mitigation purposes, this tiny parcel is literally the only overgrown area in our isolated little valley. Everyone else either has open fields and/or grazing livestock, so it all evens out.