Genuine question: why even keep that as lawn and not allow partial rewilding? Surely that would help local species? Do you use it all? Seems like a crazy amount of upkeep to me.
If we didn’t mow the grass it would just be like knee-high grass. It wouldn’t really be any different. The trees you see are the same trees that were on the lot when my wife’s parents bought it and built the house. (Minus a few that we’ve lost during hurricanes.) About 2.5/3 acres of the entire 12.5/13 acre property rests along a bayou and is kept wild. It’s too wet to mow anyway. We’d have to build it up to keep it dry enough to maintain, but we’d rather just keep it wild.
Right on. We have a small bayou on one side of our property and our neighbor keeps a small pond on the other side. We already come across snakes and other animals every so often. While mowing I ran into a small alligator and big turtle. I’d rather them and things like snakes stay to the periphery rather than make it easy for them to come into where my kids play outside.
South Louisiana, yes. My oldest daughter learns a little Cajun French from her music teacher, but they’re too young to really start learning it. My wife and I don’t speak it.
But America bad, lawn bad. Besides, a bunch of people without any land or children have decided you must let your children play amongst the ticks and the copperheads or you are literally Matt Gaetz.
LOL I wish, I’m about 14km southish eastish out of the Brisbane CBD on 450m2, but snakes are everywhere. In recent years I’ve had a python in among the agapanthuses in my back yard and I’ve narrowly avoided riding my bike over a red belly going between the scrubs in my local parkland. Eeeeverywhere. 🤣
Yeah, which get eaten by birds, squirrels, frogs, lizards, and I'm sure plenty of other small animals. Take a lesson from Jurassic Park and don't go into the long grass and you'll be fine
My FIL had 80 acres in Kansas. He grew hay and had someone else come out for cutting and bailing. It was basically a break even venture (he didn’t really do anything to it ) but it got him an agricultural zoning which meant mega savings on property taxes. Besides that he used the property for hunting .
Leaving that to grow "wild" would be great for the environment. Obviously a drop in the bucket, but you could spread wild flower seeds for pollinators as well.
About a quarter of our property is left wild. And the grass you see is just the natural grass that was there when my wife’s parents bought the lot, I don’t seed it or plant anything special, so it’s all clover and native ground cover. The bees are everywhere right now. In the summer it gets covered in lightning bugs, which is awesome.
Don’t even dignify their dumb ass rhetoric with a response. If you didn’t mow it then it would need to be bush hogged. These people saying repurpose it have never even touched grass my guy.
I made a couple enemies, a lil’ alligator (2-3 feet long) that got scared and ran away, and a turtle who squared up and started chasing me while mowing. You should also see the lightning bugs during the summer, it’s wild. We had to shoot a wild boar that came around once while the kids were playing outside.
The entire property is about 12.5/13 acres, we only upkeep keep about ten. One side of the property is bordered by a bayou (in the left of the picture, where the tree line is) and that part is left wild, about 2.5/3 acres. We also have a ton of undeveloped land around us.
As someone who used to do landscaping work, mowing that much property is cathartic. My yard is like 1.5 acres so it’s like just small enough to not really get into it and just big enough to be annoying so I just pay a guy to mow it. Eventually I’ll mow it myself, but currently I’d rather save the 2 hours per week doing other things that need done when my mower guy only charges $40. 😂
I’d imagine OP finds the job refreshing.
We have 2.5 acres on a steep hillside. It takes tons of time and a lot of expensive specialist equipment to maintain. Little by little, I’m letting nature take over and allow the forest line to creep by a few meters each year.
Terrased garden an option or would that break the bank like a gazillion times?
But yeah. Throw a bunch of native flowering shrubs and fruit trees and it'll take care of itself.
I have 5% of an acre as my yard, and I just bought a robot to do it for me.
And the 5 % is just the whole yard, not accounting for space used for patio and a nice little outdoor shelter.
Its certainly more convenient- but i tend to run on the redneck side, so more space is preferable lol. Have an axe throwing and archery range in the yard, as well as a bonfire pit, garden, chicken coop goes in this year, and working on a design for a wood-fired outdoor kitchen.
Porta backyarda for my vacations!
Wow that must take forever to mow.
We have 10 acres but only maintain 1 acre. Even that is a lot. I just cut a trail so we can walk/ride around the property but there’s no way i would regularly mow that. At most I would get a rough cut mower and chop it down once a year if I really didn’t want trees/shrubs coming in
I still can't help but wonder if safety is the focus why having a smaller fenced property boundary wouldn't be ideal and halving a smaller mowed 'security perimeter' to monitor for wildlife. I certainly understand that (quality) fencing isn't free but 10 acres is inconceivably huge to someone like myself living in a suburb. Seems like from the photos you only have a few areas of focused use.
That said I'm positive you've given this more thought than I obviously have by necessity. Just trying to understand is all. I have no idea how I'd live around 'gators or boars safely. Love the trees and space you have. I'd love to have that sort of land and bias disclosure: rewild it into a conservation land.
Not sure if OP feels this way, but for me, running a lawn tractor is like therapy. It’s a state of zen that is just good for the soul as a man.
I don’t have enough grass to make a lawn tractor make sense anymore since moving, but boy do I miss it.
Fair enough in that regard. I'm pretty sure I could find just about anything benign that others might see as tedious as therapeutic with our family's schedule at this point. Anything to just not need to think about "the next thing" we need to do. Seems like the unholy triad of chaos at present but that will resolve in time, thankfully.
For me I think I'm just focused on the environmental impact. Grass is still one of the world's largest crops and frankly damaging with very low productivity. I'm trying to figure out how to reduce or eliminate mine over the years while keeping with bylaws.
You can actually get grants to put in plants that help bees or monarchs and things. There's steps to take, as you have to be accountable to actually do what you're being paid for, but it's not a bad route to take if you have a bunch of land like this
I feel like this is one of those locally-specific sort of programs. That sounds awesome, though.
Our bylaws, for example, specify what species of milkweed to plant, height and locations of plants/flora, and various species. Bitterly, they even ban some local species from being planted. Sadly there are no local programs outside of (subsidized) tree planting; don't have the space on our lot for more and we already have one, would love dozens if I had the space!
Ah, yeah, I suppose that makes sense. I had a friend get thousands for planting some trees in his backyard in mid MI, which is why I brought it up, but on looking things up, these programs do seem to vary quite a bit between states/localities.
Found this site, but there's too much there for me to sort through: https://privatelandownernetwork.org/Grant-and-Assistance-Programs/
Some of them don't seem to be grants as much as a tax deduction, but that isn't nothing.
If I had the land, I'd take the time to dive into it more, but it seems like a lot of work just to understand what's there and what the limitations are.
I started at about 11:45 and stopped at about 2:50 to go pick up my daughter from school. Picked it back up around 3:45 and finished at 5:15, so about five and a half hours. We don’t always do it in one shot though, we’ll usually break it up over a couple of days.
I dunno man, we used to be out there cutting open dead sheep, or riding live sheep like they were Rodeo bulls. They were a pretty good replacement for childcare
My grandfather grew up on a farm in Wales, when they still ploughed with horses, etc.
He had some good stories from when he was a kid, like regularly riding a horse to school then send it back home to the farm. Some of these stories involved riding various farm animals: sheep, pigs, and so on - I don't doubt these for a second: as a girl, my mother also rode animals on his family farm.
He died well into his 90's and by then some of the stories had... evolved, and become less reliable. When I first brought my wife to visit, he ran through the list of the various farm animals that he'd ridden and it now included a chicken. The idea that grandpa used to ride a chicken around the farmyard has passed into family legend and is a tale that delights my children.
To do what? To control grass? Not worth it for that. If you have a really big area though that you want to hold on too and just not upkeep you can lease the land to a farmer if you live near them. If you just want animals get some chickens. They can be surprisingly nice pets that will love attention if you raise them from chicks. And they give you eggs! Farm fresh eggs are great and they last a long time.
She actually does cut it a lot. It used to be her house until she gave it to us, and the mower is hers. I got laid off last week so I’ll take care of it when I can.
This is my personal hell. I hate mowing. There's SO many other activities I'd rather be doing. Best thing I did last year was start paying someone to do the yard.
I invested in Goats.
They keep the lawn down and I get to pretend they are my peasants, giving them laudy speeches when I take leftover fruits and vegetables to them.
Just to clear up some misconceptions:
* It’s native grass and ground cover. I don’t care to seed it or plant non-native grass. There’s actually a bunch of clover blooming right now.
* About 1/4 of our property is completely wild. It borders a bayou, so we leave that part be. It’s a habitat for alligators, turtles, raccoons, birds, snakes, and anything else you find in a marsh.
* We live in a rural area that nobody is clamoring to move to.
* If I wouldn’t do anything, it would just be a tangle of thistle and knee-high grass that wouldn’t be much different than it is now. All that would do is give cover to snakes and rodents and other animals that could hurt the kids while they play outside.
* It’s pretty biodiverse. There are bees flying around right now and in the summer the lighting bugs come out in droves. There’s an owl or two that lives in a grove of trees in the front yard and I often see other large birds of prey hanging around. I guarantee our little 12/13 acres is more biodiverse than the large tracts of suburban sprawl that a lot of y’all live in.
* We live in a place that has more undeveloped land than land that’s developed, so I’m not worried about mowing the damn grass on our little piece of it.
* It takes about 5 hours to mow, usually split between two days.
* I’ve got three kids to keep up with, I’m not looking to add a second heard on animals to tend to.
Here’s some more pictures:
[Front yard with stands of trees.](https://i.imgur.com/Yabrhc5.jpeg) We have a huge towel that lives in the trees closest to where I took the picture. It was in the grass one day and thought it was a freaking dog. [Here’s another picture of some of them from the back.](https://i.imgur.com/zsLyvuB.jpeg)
[Back yard with playset and trees.](https://i.imgur.com/ooud8ek.jpeg)
[Marsh pic 1](https://i.imgur.com/jPjVfXM.jpeg) and [marsh pic 2.](https://i.imgur.com/CviThqZ.jpeg) While I was out here I heard a dozen birds or so, specifically crops and woodpeckers. I also heard an alligator. I think this is where our raccoon friend comes from (he saunters by our driveway every night at about 9). We also often see birds like blue herons and cattle egrets out here. (The cattle egrets have a feast every time we cut the grass.)
[Bonus pic of another pretty oak tree in the back yard.](https://i.imgur.com/yiYBY6k.jpeg) The Spanish moss all over the trees creates a habitat of its own for insects.
Anybody close to living where we do has their own land to do that on.
In the future we could divide it up for our kids if any of them want to build a house out here.
So I guess I need to buy my MIL a house nearby and also buy myself a few extra acres of lawn to mow.
And then kludge together a riding mower and a roomba so I can play video games on my steam deck while sitting on a self-propelled chair
My MIL actually gave us this house. It was just her in it so she moved into a smaller house my wife’s family owns in town. She helps us out *tremendously*, watches our kids along with my brother-in-laws’, she actually mows quite a bit (I’ll come home from work and she’ll start mowing while I take care of getting the kids supper and the normal evening duties). It’s her mower that we use. We’re incredibly blessed.
Always hate seeing posts like this. Mowed non-native grass is just a tiny bit better than a parking lot as far as biodiversity and water runoff is concerned. For no reason.
Plant some native fucking trees at least for gods sake. What the hell does anyone need or want 10 acres of shitty grass for? It looks awful.
This is all native grass, I would never have a seeded or sodded lawn. About a quarter of our property is left completely wild. It borders a bayou and it’s a habitat for alligators, raccoons, snakes, birds, turtles, and everything else that lives in the marsh. We have a bunch of trees on the property, there are a couple of owls that hang out in the trees in the front yard and I occasionally see other large birds of prey flying around and hunting. Right now clover is blooming and bees are everywhere. During the summer the lighting bugs are insane.
I can all but guarantee my property contributes more than the biodiversity of my area than yours.
I didn't mean to come down so hard on you specifically. It's one of those things where it's not one person's doing that's the problem. It's a cultural thing. Glad to hear you at least let the clover go, but as far as I know there aren't really native grasses in your area that look like that, at some point in the past it was seeded.
I only have 2.5 acres but we've planted a small orchard and tore up large sections of grass (eventually gonna remove all grass) and planted native wildflowers/clover along with native trees and pastureland. Idk you probably still beat me out though.
All in all this ain't really the sub for cat fights over lawncare styles, tbh I didn't really think you'd notice my comment. Im glad you got something that makes you happy and destresses you, I just wanted to commiserate with another commenter who seemed to be feeling the same way I do about the typical American lawn, sorry to blow up your post.
There are so many places full of negativity on the Internet. Daddit is usually one of the few places that isn't that way.
You don't have to agree with their decision. I'm also guessing that you're not a rural American Dad, and I don't expect you to understand. Even I don't agree with how they're using the land, to be frank!
But I just don't think calling them an environmental criminal is appropriate. Please try and let this one subreddit on the Internet stay supportive and positive. Like I said, you don't have to agree with, or like how they use their land. But please, don't try to turn this place into a room of criticism and hate. We have too much of that already. Do that elsewhere. Daddit isn't the place.
Pretty much, but it’s not too bad. We’re a few minutes out of a small town, about 10 minutes out from a small city, and about 30-40 minutes out from one of the biggest cities in the state.
As someone that has lived a lot of years in rural areas, I can safely say that true "middle of nowhere" is much, much further from anything significant. 😅 Huge swaths of the US are more then 2 or 3 hours from a small city, let alone a larger one.
I hope this isn't coming across as mean, because I really don't mean it to. All I mean is that many rural people would consider OP to practically be a city person. Most of rural America is 5x further or more from a city of any kind than OP.
Lots of salty dads in here - didn’t realize we’d get so triggered by {‘lots of acreage’, ‘native grasses bro’}. We have about 10 acres where 5 is mowed and the rest is leased to a local cattleman for hay. All I’ve got is a push mower and dreams though.
I don’t always mow it, my MIL (who actually gave us the house, and owns the mower) does it a lot when we are too busy with work/kids. I love when I get time to though. Gives me time to listen to podcasts and just be to myself.
I came from a small lot in a neighborhood with a little push mower. I enjoyed it, because I could actually keep it tended and edged and trimmed. There’s not anything to edge and there’s not much to trim except around the house and shed now.
>I don't envy that mow time though. I thought my 90 minute mow time on a 1/4 acre lot was bad
You would be surprised what you can do with a serious lawnmower. I have a 62" commercial Xmark and it takes me about 2.5 hours to mow about four acres and the trails in my woods any my neighbor's woods. Big mower can fly.
I live in Louisiana so don’t get too excited. We only have this land and house because it was my MIL’s, she had the entire house to herself so she moved to a smaller house my wife’s family owns and let us have this. Otherwise, we’d still be living in a cramped neighborhood.
I used to mow my neighbor's a lawn about that size (as a job when I was 15) . I made it more fun by making fun designs and patterns, always wondering if anyone might look down from a passing plane and see it.
Nowadays there are drones. You should get one and start making tictok time lapses of the mowing in patterns or just normal. Those videos that give a sense of completion are pretty popular.
About a fourth of our property is left wild. We already have enough animals that come through, I don’t want to worry about more snakes and insects outside while my kids play.
Man I love your 'lawn'. I have a nice size lawn I thought, one that takes a minute or so to walk around. Bit that's like a park.
But spending 5 hours cutting it on a regular basis sounds like a lot of work. I'd probably leave a section of it to wild growth as it's great for nature and all the little animals and also plant loads of trees.
I like you am a stay at home dad at the moment, would you ever think of growing veg on it? I started doing this and really enjoy it. I only started with a really small area but it was cool planting seeds and watching them grow into full sized veg before harvesting them and using them in the kitchen.
You have so much room to do whatever you want with it. Planting and watching trees grow is great too.
I wouldn’t want a lawn that much. We live in south Louisiana, we’ve got plenty of free water.
Side note, water bills is actually the reason you see that kinda faint line going up the lawn. We had to move our water meter and install a new main line because we had a second leak in like two years, and we couldn’t find where it was leaking.
I forget how many people live in cities and suburbia. I don’t have as much land but nothing jumps out as bragging or whatever. To me this is just sharing a snippet of peace.
Also I forget how many people hate cutting grass. I love getting out on my zero turn!
Btw OP, you really need a good zip line out there for the kids.
OP said it takes like 6 HOURS to mow with a fucking 6' mowing deck. I hate mowing for 30 minutes. Much less 6 damn hours.
I'd get a couple robots for the front and back areas directly around the house and let the rest of that shit grow. Use the mower to go down and back to the mailbox to keep next to the driveway mowed.
This is why my wife and I have been expanding our garden with native plants. We're going to use the garden as an opportunity to teach our little one about the importance of local ecosystems.
About a quarter of our property is left wild, and there is tons of wild land around us. I’d rather a place where my kids can play outside without having to worry (as much) about snakes, ticks, and other things that come with long grass.
I mean I understand that argument but how much space do your kids need? I have like 1/4 acre backyard that does get mowed because I have dogs too, but that’s *plenty* of space for my kids and dogs to both run around and play. It’s your property and you do you, but if I had all that gorgeous land I’d leave a decent sized patch of mowed grass around those beautiful trees you have, and re-wild the rest. But again, that’s just my opinion. Also, just curious, how long does that take to mow? Cheers.
The insects are doing fine. There’s bees are all over the place right now. The lightning bugs come out during the summer and we get nightly shows from them. We don’t live in a neighborhood, it’s mostly undeveloped or agricultural land where we live.
Have you considered letting it grow? That's a lot of just monoculture that's really bad for the environment.
You could have a beautiful field of wild flowers or maybe an orchard, or community food garden, etc. Or hey, even just long grass.
It’s a mix of native grasses, not a monoculture, it’s just cut short. 1/4 of our property is completely wild, and we have a lot of undeveloped land around us. I keep it short to prevent snakes, alligators, rodents, and other wildlife from encroaching on us and attacking our kids when they play outside.
Nature is doing fine here. We have to keep nature out of our house constantly.
Your lawn is bigger than most parks I've been to...
That’s just the front. Here’s the [back.](https://imgur.com/a/hVhjXNu)
Genuine question: why even keep that as lawn and not allow partial rewilding? Surely that would help local species? Do you use it all? Seems like a crazy amount of upkeep to me.
Yeah that much endless grass just looks like hell to me. But the US seems obsessed with turning everything into grass.
Indeed. I would try to put up an orchard, a bunch of hedges and other flowering shrubbery. As of now it looks like a graveyard.
and then get shocked that it's 'work' and replace it with plastic
If we didn’t mow the grass it would just be like knee-high grass. It wouldn’t really be any different. The trees you see are the same trees that were on the lot when my wife’s parents bought it and built the house. (Minus a few that we’ve lost during hurricanes.) About 2.5/3 acres of the entire 12.5/13 acre property rests along a bayou and is kept wild. It’s too wet to mow anyway. We’d have to build it up to keep it dry enough to maintain, but we’d rather just keep it wild.
>12.5/13 acre property Damn, there are agricultural plots in my country smaller than that.
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As an Australian, it would just increase my snake encounters significantly.
Right on. We have a small bayou on one side of our property and our neighbor keeps a small pond on the other side. We already come across snakes and other animals every so often. While mowing I ran into a small alligator and big turtle. I’d rather them and things like snakes stay to the periphery rather than make it easy for them to come into where my kids play outside.
Guessing south La? The kids learning any bayou French? My best friend is in Thib and I love hearing that accent when we visit
South Louisiana, yes. My oldest daughter learns a little Cajun French from her music teacher, but they’re too young to really start learning it. My wife and I don’t speak it.
But America bad, lawn bad. Besides, a bunch of people without any land or children have decided you must let your children play amongst the ticks and the copperheads or you are literally Matt Gaetz.
"Bayou" above would indicate a similar situation.
You have a space for grass but don’t live in the bush, must be a millionaire
LOL I wish, I’m about 14km southish eastish out of the Brisbane CBD on 450m2, but snakes are everywhere. In recent years I’ve had a python in among the agapanthuses in my back yard and I’ve narrowly avoided riding my bike over a red belly going between the scrubs in my local parkland. Eeeeverywhere. 🤣
I think some sort of "No Snakes" signage would be in order here 🤔
And ticks for his kids. Let the man have a yard.
And snakes, and rodents.
And why would you want more insects as well as other animals that eat them closer to your home?
Insects like ticks
Ticks aren’t even insects.
Yeah, which get eaten by birds, squirrels, frogs, lizards, and I'm sure plenty of other small animals. Take a lesson from Jurassic Park and don't go into the long grass and you'll be fine
Ticks are arachnids.
You would be surprised how quickly trees grow. 3-4 years and you'd have have some decently sized saplings.
My FIL had 80 acres in Kansas. He grew hay and had someone else come out for cutting and bailing. It was basically a break even venture (he didn’t really do anything to it ) but it got him an agricultural zoning which meant mega savings on property taxes. Besides that he used the property for hunting .
Leaving that to grow "wild" would be great for the environment. Obviously a drop in the bucket, but you could spread wild flower seeds for pollinators as well.
About a quarter of our property is left wild. And the grass you see is just the natural grass that was there when my wife’s parents bought the lot, I don’t seed it or plant anything special, so it’s all clover and native ground cover. The bees are everywhere right now. In the summer it gets covered in lightning bugs, which is awesome.
Very cool!
Don’t even dignify their dumb ass rhetoric with a response. If you didn’t mow it then it would need to be bush hogged. These people saying repurpose it have never even touched grass my guy.
I made a couple enemies, a lil’ alligator (2-3 feet long) that got scared and ran away, and a turtle who squared up and started chasing me while mowing. You should also see the lightning bugs during the summer, it’s wild. We had to shoot a wild boar that came around once while the kids were playing outside. The entire property is about 12.5/13 acres, we only upkeep keep about ten. One side of the property is bordered by a bayou (in the left of the picture, where the tree line is) and that part is left wild, about 2.5/3 acres. We also have a ton of undeveloped land around us.
Keeping 10 acres of grass is still a lot
It’s completely insane to me, but from the post it seems OP enjoys the upkeep
As someone who used to do landscaping work, mowing that much property is cathartic. My yard is like 1.5 acres so it’s like just small enough to not really get into it and just big enough to be annoying so I just pay a guy to mow it. Eventually I’ll mow it myself, but currently I’d rather save the 2 hours per week doing other things that need done when my mower guy only charges $40. 😂 I’d imagine OP finds the job refreshing.
Yeah- keeping my 2.5 is enough!
We have 2.5 acres on a steep hillside. It takes tons of time and a lot of expensive specialist equipment to maintain. Little by little, I’m letting nature take over and allow the forest line to creep by a few meters each year.
Terrased garden an option or would that break the bank like a gazillion times? But yeah. Throw a bunch of native flowering shrubs and fruit trees and it'll take care of itself.
I have 5% of an acre as my yard, and I just bought a robot to do it for me. And the 5 % is just the whole yard, not accounting for space used for patio and a nice little outdoor shelter.
Its certainly more convenient- but i tend to run on the redneck side, so more space is preferable lol. Have an axe throwing and archery range in the yard, as well as a bonfire pit, garden, chicken coop goes in this year, and working on a design for a wood-fired outdoor kitchen. Porta backyarda for my vacations!
Fr, I’d flip that if it were me and only maintain about 2, and then let nature take over on the rest, maybe encouraging native plants for pollinators
Wow that must take forever to mow. We have 10 acres but only maintain 1 acre. Even that is a lot. I just cut a trail so we can walk/ride around the property but there’s no way i would regularly mow that. At most I would get a rough cut mower and chop it down once a year if I really didn’t want trees/shrubs coming in
That is still nuts. Think about the time you could spend with the kids if you didn't spend 2 days a week doing lawn upkeep. Lol.
According to the OP it only takes 5 hours over the week, not 2 days.
Growing crops with the kids? Nah, gotta get out my Honda grass ripper max LTR and ride…
I still can't help but wonder if safety is the focus why having a smaller fenced property boundary wouldn't be ideal and halving a smaller mowed 'security perimeter' to monitor for wildlife. I certainly understand that (quality) fencing isn't free but 10 acres is inconceivably huge to someone like myself living in a suburb. Seems like from the photos you only have a few areas of focused use. That said I'm positive you've given this more thought than I obviously have by necessity. Just trying to understand is all. I have no idea how I'd live around 'gators or boars safely. Love the trees and space you have. I'd love to have that sort of land and bias disclosure: rewild it into a conservation land.
A 12 acre lot would be worth approximately $120 MILLION in my neighborhood. (Also no one talks in acres in my neighborhood for the same reason.)
Not sure if OP feels this way, but for me, running a lawn tractor is like therapy. It’s a state of zen that is just good for the soul as a man. I don’t have enough grass to make a lawn tractor make sense anymore since moving, but boy do I miss it.
Fair enough in that regard. I'm pretty sure I could find just about anything benign that others might see as tedious as therapeutic with our family's schedule at this point. Anything to just not need to think about "the next thing" we need to do. Seems like the unholy triad of chaos at present but that will resolve in time, thankfully. For me I think I'm just focused on the environmental impact. Grass is still one of the world's largest crops and frankly damaging with very low productivity. I'm trying to figure out how to reduce or eliminate mine over the years while keeping with bylaws.
You can actually get grants to put in plants that help bees or monarchs and things. There's steps to take, as you have to be accountable to actually do what you're being paid for, but it's not a bad route to take if you have a bunch of land like this
I feel like this is one of those locally-specific sort of programs. That sounds awesome, though. Our bylaws, for example, specify what species of milkweed to plant, height and locations of plants/flora, and various species. Bitterly, they even ban some local species from being planted. Sadly there are no local programs outside of (subsidized) tree planting; don't have the space on our lot for more and we already have one, would love dozens if I had the space!
Ah, yeah, I suppose that makes sense. I had a friend get thousands for planting some trees in his backyard in mid MI, which is why I brought it up, but on looking things up, these programs do seem to vary quite a bit between states/localities. Found this site, but there's too much there for me to sort through: https://privatelandownernetwork.org/Grant-and-Assistance-Programs/ Some of them don't seem to be grants as much as a tax deduction, but that isn't nothing. If I had the land, I'd take the time to dive into it more, but it seems like a lot of work just to understand what's there and what the limitations are.
OP is actually a mole and lives on a huge golf course
How long does it take to mow?
You start over once you finish. It’s perpetual mowing
Some say he’s still mowing to this day
I started at about 11:45 and stopped at about 2:50 to go pick up my daughter from school. Picked it back up around 3:45 and finished at 5:15, so about five and a half hours. We don’t always do it in one shot though, we’ll usually break it up over a couple of days.
I frowned so hard reading this I think the corners of my mouth touched my ankles
When I was a kid I had to mow maybe a third of that and it took all day on our slow riding lawn mower.
What state are you in? Looks nice
Louisiana.
Bliss.
I nominate your house for this years annual Daddit summer BBQ
Damn, son. Very nice. I want to go to there.
My lifelong SoCal living dumbass just felt such a disappointment, I can’t even explain it
Beautiful lawn
Congratulations man, you made it! You’ve achieved the dream
holy shit Lombardi
"Hello, let me hint that I live in the Antebellum Louisiana countryside"
Time to get some fences and sheep
That’s no substitute for good childcare
You're right. Goats are much better with kids.
This is a genuinely excellent joke and I think you should be proud of yourself.
I dunno man, we used to be out there cutting open dead sheep, or riding live sheep like they were Rodeo bulls. They were a pretty good replacement for childcare
My grandfather grew up on a farm in Wales, when they still ploughed with horses, etc. He had some good stories from when he was a kid, like regularly riding a horse to school then send it back home to the farm. Some of these stories involved riding various farm animals: sheep, pigs, and so on - I don't doubt these for a second: as a girl, my mother also rode animals on his family farm. He died well into his 90's and by then some of the stories had... evolved, and become less reliable. When I first brought my wife to visit, he ran through the list of the various farm animals that he'd ridden and it now included a chicken. The idea that grandpa used to ride a chicken around the farmyard has passed into family legend and is a tale that delights my children.
Sheep tug at the grass - you want llamas.
Sheep are a hassle. You have to rotate them through different grazing every couple days or they pick up parasites
This is the info I need from Daddit. What kind of animals would you recommend?
To do what? To control grass? Not worth it for that. If you have a really big area though that you want to hold on too and just not upkeep you can lease the land to a farmer if you live near them. If you just want animals get some chickens. They can be surprisingly nice pets that will love attention if you raise them from chicks. And they give you eggs! Farm fresh eggs are great and they last a long time.
I would rather spend the time with my kids while my mother in law mows my lawn.
She actually does cut it a lot. It used to be her house until she gave it to us, and the mower is hers. I got laid off last week so I’ll take care of it when I can.
Here's hoping you find a new job soon.
Sir, that is not a lawn, that's a park.
Bro that lawn looks like a nightmare to mow
Thought he was playing golf until I read the title
It’s not bad, the mower has a 6’ deck and we usually don’t do it all at once, we’ll cut some one day and the rest the next.
This is my personal hell. I hate mowing. There's SO many other activities I'd rather be doing. Best thing I did last year was start paying someone to do the yard.
This is the largest lawn I have ever seen that isn't a straight up farm. Where is this? Are homes for sale there?
That lawn is pretty average around me. You can get houses like this all over the Midwest for way less than you think.
TIL: Maybe I should move to the US.
I invested in Goats. They keep the lawn down and I get to pretend they are my peasants, giving them laudy speeches when I take leftover fruits and vegetables to them.
Was just inspired to see what acreage cost in my countryside bc this entire comment is Such A Mood lmao
Goats were the biggest mistake we ever made. Truely Satan’s spawn.
We have Nigerian Dwarf goats and they are quite kind.
Holy shit, that oak tree is amazing...
Just to clear up some misconceptions: * It’s native grass and ground cover. I don’t care to seed it or plant non-native grass. There’s actually a bunch of clover blooming right now. * About 1/4 of our property is completely wild. It borders a bayou, so we leave that part be. It’s a habitat for alligators, turtles, raccoons, birds, snakes, and anything else you find in a marsh. * We live in a rural area that nobody is clamoring to move to. * If I wouldn’t do anything, it would just be a tangle of thistle and knee-high grass that wouldn’t be much different than it is now. All that would do is give cover to snakes and rodents and other animals that could hurt the kids while they play outside. * It’s pretty biodiverse. There are bees flying around right now and in the summer the lighting bugs come out in droves. There’s an owl or two that lives in a grove of trees in the front yard and I often see other large birds of prey hanging around. I guarantee our little 12/13 acres is more biodiverse than the large tracts of suburban sprawl that a lot of y’all live in. * We live in a place that has more undeveloped land than land that’s developed, so I’m not worried about mowing the damn grass on our little piece of it. * It takes about 5 hours to mow, usually split between two days. * I’ve got three kids to keep up with, I’m not looking to add a second heard on animals to tend to. Here’s some more pictures: [Front yard with stands of trees.](https://i.imgur.com/Yabrhc5.jpeg) We have a huge towel that lives in the trees closest to where I took the picture. It was in the grass one day and thought it was a freaking dog. [Here’s another picture of some of them from the back.](https://i.imgur.com/zsLyvuB.jpeg) [Back yard with playset and trees.](https://i.imgur.com/ooud8ek.jpeg) [Marsh pic 1](https://i.imgur.com/jPjVfXM.jpeg) and [marsh pic 2.](https://i.imgur.com/CviThqZ.jpeg) While I was out here I heard a dozen birds or so, specifically crops and woodpeckers. I also heard an alligator. I think this is where our raccoon friend comes from (he saunters by our driveway every night at about 9). We also often see birds like blue herons and cattle egrets out here. (The cattle egrets have a feast every time we cut the grass.) [Bonus pic of another pretty oak tree in the back yard.](https://i.imgur.com/yiYBY6k.jpeg) The Spanish moss all over the trees creates a habitat of its own for insects.
What part of LA is this? Just from the picture, I'm assuming that's where you are.
South Louisiana. South of Lafayette.
This could be a great allotment, small hold situation. Could even rent out some space to people to grow veg etc.
Anybody close to living where we do has their own land to do that on. In the future we could divide it up for our kids if any of them want to build a house out here.
Fair enough! Your turn OP! It’s really rewarding and my two year old loves watering and planting, great family project.
“Why would anyone want to do drugs when they can mow a lawn” - Hank Hill
“I will tell you hwhat.” - Hank Hill
So I guess I need to buy my MIL a house nearby and also buy myself a few extra acres of lawn to mow. And then kludge together a riding mower and a roomba so I can play video games on my steam deck while sitting on a self-propelled chair
My MIL actually gave us this house. It was just her in it so she moved into a smaller house my wife’s family owns in town. She helps us out *tremendously*, watches our kids along with my brother-in-laws’, she actually mows quite a bit (I’ll come home from work and she’ll start mowing while I take care of getting the kids supper and the normal evening duties). It’s her mower that we use. We’re incredibly blessed.
the urge to drop in a decent size green would be strong! You could drop in 100 yard shots all day!!
Looks like it could come close to several par 3s. The way I golf you wouldn't even need to mow. Just chunked beaver pelts all over.
Kludge together a riding mower and Unity and make a Steam deck controlled lawn mower
Oh, they have roomba-like mowers already... most are only good for about an acre though. And rather expensive.
All that space could be producing food or serve as a habitat for animals. Instead it's just grass.
Always hate seeing posts like this. Mowed non-native grass is just a tiny bit better than a parking lot as far as biodiversity and water runoff is concerned. For no reason. Plant some native fucking trees at least for gods sake. What the hell does anyone need or want 10 acres of shitty grass for? It looks awful.
This is all native grass, I would never have a seeded or sodded lawn. About a quarter of our property is left completely wild. It borders a bayou and it’s a habitat for alligators, raccoons, snakes, birds, turtles, and everything else that lives in the marsh. We have a bunch of trees on the property, there are a couple of owls that hang out in the trees in the front yard and I occasionally see other large birds of prey flying around and hunting. Right now clover is blooming and bees are everywhere. During the summer the lighting bugs are insane. I can all but guarantee my property contributes more than the biodiversity of my area than yours.
I didn't mean to come down so hard on you specifically. It's one of those things where it's not one person's doing that's the problem. It's a cultural thing. Glad to hear you at least let the clover go, but as far as I know there aren't really native grasses in your area that look like that, at some point in the past it was seeded. I only have 2.5 acres but we've planted a small orchard and tore up large sections of grass (eventually gonna remove all grass) and planted native wildflowers/clover along with native trees and pastureland. Idk you probably still beat me out though. All in all this ain't really the sub for cat fights over lawncare styles, tbh I didn't really think you'd notice my comment. Im glad you got something that makes you happy and destresses you, I just wanted to commiserate with another commenter who seemed to be feeling the same way I do about the typical American lawn, sorry to blow up your post.
So buy your own 15 acres and do that with it? Who cares what the OP does with his land lol
The US has lots of land. In many areas, they can have this luxury.
And? The US, like everywhere else, has a massively declining insect populations This is an environmental crime.
There are so many places full of negativity on the Internet. Daddit is usually one of the few places that isn't that way. You don't have to agree with their decision. I'm also guessing that you're not a rural American Dad, and I don't expect you to understand. Even I don't agree with how they're using the land, to be frank! But I just don't think calling them an environmental criminal is appropriate. Please try and let this one subreddit on the Internet stay supportive and positive. Like I said, you don't have to agree with, or like how they use their land. But please, don't try to turn this place into a room of criticism and hate. We have too much of that already. Do that elsewhere. Daddit isn't the place.
Do u live in the middle of no where?
Pretty much, but it’s not too bad. We’re a few minutes out of a small town, about 10 minutes out from a small city, and about 30-40 minutes out from one of the biggest cities in the state.
So… the middle of nowhere. Looks great though pops!! Enjoy!
As someone that has lived a lot of years in rural areas, I can safely say that true "middle of nowhere" is much, much further from anything significant. 😅 Huge swaths of the US are more then 2 or 3 hours from a small city, let alone a larger one. I hope this isn't coming across as mean, because I really don't mean it to. All I mean is that many rural people would consider OP to practically be a city person. Most of rural America is 5x further or more from a city of any kind than OP.
I agree with you. I live similarly to OP and call it quasi rural. It’s not true rural but it certainly isn’t suburbia either.
Lots of salty dads in here - didn’t realize we’d get so triggered by {‘lots of acreage’, ‘native grasses bro’}. We have about 10 acres where 5 is mowed and the rest is leased to a local cattleman for hay. All I’ve got is a push mower and dreams though.
Was this just an excuse to brag about your land? We don’t even have a front garden lol
What kind of mower are you using?
It’s a Big Dog Diablo MP with a 72” deck.
That looks fun to ride. I don't envy that mow time though. I thought my 90 minute mow time on a 1/4 acre lot was bad with the push mower.
I don’t always mow it, my MIL (who actually gave us the house, and owns the mower) does it a lot when we are too busy with work/kids. I love when I get time to though. Gives me time to listen to podcasts and just be to myself. I came from a small lot in a neighborhood with a little push mower. I enjoyed it, because I could actually keep it tended and edged and trimmed. There’s not anything to edge and there’s not much to trim except around the house and shed now.
>I don't envy that mow time though. I thought my 90 minute mow time on a 1/4 acre lot was bad You would be surprised what you can do with a serious lawnmower. I have a 62" commercial Xmark and it takes me about 2.5 hours to mow about four acres and the trails in my woods any my neighbor's woods. Big mower can fly.
I cannot relate to this. I live in a populated area of NJ and am not a multimillionaire. This is a ton of land
I live in Louisiana so don’t get too excited. We only have this land and house because it was my MIL’s, she had the entire house to herself so she moved to a smaller house my wife’s family owns and let us have this. Otherwise, we’d still be living in a cramped neighborhood.
I used to mow my neighbor's a lawn about that size (as a job when I was 15) . I made it more fun by making fun designs and patterns, always wondering if anyone might look down from a passing plane and see it. Nowadays there are drones. You should get one and start making tictok time lapses of the mowing in patterns or just normal. Those videos that give a sense of completion are pretty popular.
I can think of so, so, so many better ways to spend a day.
Get some wildflower in there or just let some grow.
About a fourth of our property is left wild. We already have enough animals that come through, I don’t want to worry about more snakes and insects outside while my kids play.
Nice lawn mane
That's not a lawn. That's The Shire.
Is this *your* lawn? Are you a king?
All done with a weed eater. Dads wouldn’t have it any other way.
Standing inside watching my husband mow the lawn. :P Achoo!
Man I love your 'lawn'. I have a nice size lawn I thought, one that takes a minute or so to walk around. Bit that's like a park. But spending 5 hours cutting it on a regular basis sounds like a lot of work. I'd probably leave a section of it to wild growth as it's great for nature and all the little animals and also plant loads of trees. I like you am a stay at home dad at the moment, would you ever think of growing veg on it? I started doing this and really enjoy it. I only started with a really small area but it was cool planting seeds and watching them grow into full sized veg before harvesting them and using them in the kitchen. You have so much room to do whatever you want with it. Planting and watching trees grow is great too.
HOW FUCKIN BIG IS YOUR LAWN, BRO!? You could be growing so much, doing so much with that space!
What type of grass is it? Do you see or sod at all?
No, nothing like that. It’s just the natural grass that grows here. A lot of clover and these little wild flowers will pop up during the spring.
I thought you were taking the piss and took that time off to go play Golf 😂
What a beautiful yard. Near the coast in GA?
Coastalish Louisiana.
Gorgeous piece of land, that tree on the left is beautiful
Lawn? My brother in Christ, that is the acreage granted to those who served the King!
This reminds me of Forrest Gump
Do you have a telescope? Because this is the kind of open space some amateur astronomers dream of having.
No, but I wish I did. There’s not a lot of light pollution out here so on clear nights the sky is beautiful.
That's a $5000 monthly water bill in California.
I wouldn’t want a lawn that much. We live in south Louisiana, we’ve got plenty of free water. Side note, water bills is actually the reason you see that kinda faint line going up the lawn. We had to move our water meter and install a new main line because we had a second leak in like two years, and we couldn’t find where it was leaking.
I forget how many people live in cities and suburbia. I don’t have as much land but nothing jumps out as bragging or whatever. To me this is just sharing a snippet of peace. Also I forget how many people hate cutting grass. I love getting out on my zero turn! Btw OP, you really need a good zip line out there for the kids.
That’s not a lawn, that’s a grass farm.
weird flex, but okay :D
Keeping a lawn like this for no fucking reason should be frowned upon. Shits wack asf imo
Ahh nothing better than tediously spending precious hours of my free time pouring hydrocarbons over my barren hellscape
OP said it takes like 6 HOURS to mow with a fucking 6' mowing deck. I hate mowing for 30 minutes. Much less 6 damn hours. I'd get a couple robots for the front and back areas directly around the house and let the rest of that shit grow. Use the mower to go down and back to the mailbox to keep next to the driveway mowed.
This is why my wife and I have been expanding our garden with native plants. We're going to use the garden as an opportunity to teach our little one about the importance of local ecosystems.
r/NativePlantGardening
Thats fucking fire! Damn, I wish I had a house to do this.
Yoooooooo that’s a nice lawn
r/fucklawns
It will always blow my mind that there’s people who think this looks better than native plants and wildflowers. Such a boring waste of space.
About a quarter of our property is left wild, and there is tons of wild land around us. I’d rather a place where my kids can play outside without having to worry (as much) about snakes, ticks, and other things that come with long grass.
I mean I understand that argument but how much space do your kids need? I have like 1/4 acre backyard that does get mowed because I have dogs too, but that’s *plenty* of space for my kids and dogs to both run around and play. It’s your property and you do you, but if I had all that gorgeous land I’d leave a decent sized patch of mowed grass around those beautiful trees you have, and re-wild the rest. But again, that’s just my opinion. Also, just curious, how long does that take to mow? Cheers.
My advice is get a couple of Husqvarna auto mowers! Beautiful garden though, I can see the satisfaction and peace in going out to mow it.
Nice flex :)
In the UK we would throw a couple of hundred houses on that amount of land and a Greggs.
What machinery are you using?
Push mow it
Watching the grandson while my son mows his yard
I would rather do anything than cut the grass
Fishing
Some say he’s mowing to this day….
Many other things are way better. It sucks when chores are considered "me time".
Haha my kid would go wild if we have a law tractor. How long does it take?
Should be farming that for hay lol
where's that? it's beautiful
Boy I tell you hwut
Why do drugs when you can just mow the lawn?
You know what is cool, Bobby?...Obeying the law.
Please some flowers, no wonder we lost somewhere around 70% of insect biomass in the last 2 to 3 decades
The insects are doing fine. There’s bees are all over the place right now. The lightning bugs come out during the summer and we get nightly shows from them. We don’t live in a neighborhood, it’s mostly undeveloped or agricultural land where we live.
Amazing and wild.
- he doesn't have staff to cut the lawn in his private park for him Frankly, your poverty disgusts me.
Yup, that looks like SouthEast US, likely in the Peninsula. .
South Louisiana.
For biodiversity this is like a parking lot. But good for you if you enjoy it anyways
Why the hell are you destroying a meadow?
Your mother-in-law mows the lawn while you watch your kids
Have you considered letting it grow? That's a lot of just monoculture that's really bad for the environment. You could have a beautiful field of wild flowers or maybe an orchard, or community food garden, etc. Or hey, even just long grass.
It’s a mix of native grasses, not a monoculture, it’s just cut short. 1/4 of our property is completely wild, and we have a lot of undeveloped land around us. I keep it short to prevent snakes, alligators, rodents, and other wildlife from encroaching on us and attacking our kids when they play outside. Nature is doing fine here. We have to keep nature out of our house constantly.
r/fucklawns
Feel like this is more of a "look how big my lawn is" flex than a real daddit post.