Winter Solstice

Our Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year started with a beautiful dawn which was followed by a bright, sunny and crisply cool day.  I took advantage of the last dry day forecast for the week and slashed the onion weed in the plantation.  I managed 2/3 of it before the slasher started getting a bit hot.  The onion weed is as tough as leather straps and you can hardly cut it where it is full height and full thickness,  the blade just gets caught and grinds to a halt, which is not very good for the bearings.  It was just as well I had already done one pass 5 weeks ago or I wouldn’t have been able to get through it.   We also fired up the lawnmower and cut the arena grass.  The three rotary cylinders on the 20 year old Ransomes don’t even touch the onion weed as it is too long to feed in.  We are going to make a weed killing wicking bar to tackle the onion weed in the arena.  Apparently it is quite easy and involves some canvas and a length of pvc pipe.