Land is unique among all things; it is forever.
I grew up in NYC and always hated yard work. When I bought my first house in Austin, Texas, I had a yard. Every weekend I sweated in the 98 degree heat--never 100, never 95, always 98--mowing and trimming and edging my 1/3 acre, and hated it. Absolutely hated it. Vowed I would never do yardwork again. That was 1979.
Later, when living in Malibu and San Jose, California, and in Woodstock, NY, I deliberately had small yards that my wife mowed. In Tallahassee, we had an acre and hired someone. Hated it; avoided it.
Bought 10 acres here in CT in '91 and hired someone to cut one acre of lawn and let everthing else go wild until last year. Then we bought another acre adjacent to our front lawn to prevent a house from being built. Paid through the nose and had a one acre lawn installed.
The bargain I made with the Financial Devil to purchase the land is that I would stop hiring out the work and do it myself. I dreaded it. Hated the thought.
Bought a DR brush cutter and swappable lawn deck. Started brush cutting by my creek because that seemed more interesting than lawn mowing. Last summer WE had the drought and heat wave. It took me seven full days in 90 degree weather to cut two acres of 10' tall phragmites and brambles.
I liked it. I looked forward to it. I took off days from work to brush cut. I mowed. Didnt like it as much as brush cutting, but looked forward to it too. Realized I had the wrong tools and began thinking about a small tractor.
Why do I like it? How did revulsion become attraction? What changed?
I think it is feeling at one with the land, the eternal thing. It is MY land. I am changing it. Improving it. I am proud.
I feel that I am involved in the process of creation.
