Clearing old hay field

[Mtsoxfan]

In the longer term, you might want to take a look at how much of the 18 acres needs mowed, how much might be better in native grasses/veg, and how much might be better in something like planted pines or something. The reason I mention this, 18 acres to mow, even every two months, your looking at basically an entire weekend if mowing, every two months. Hired out mowing, I'm guessing $800-1000/cut? If you looked at it, and decided, we'll, that 4 acres I want cut every month, these 6 acres are going to be native veg, and these 8 acres are going to go either pines or natural forest reg, we start turning a two day job into a couple afternoons.

This is where I'm at right now. I don't want to spend an entire weekend every month. I'm higher, looking downish across the field. It is a continued beautiful view. I plan now to cut some, a few walking paths and see what happens. Like I said, I don't mind the tall grass, just want to see what it could be with a little work. Not a manicured lawn. I love wild flowers etc.
I've been slowly cutting into the property, still not mine, but neighbors say treat it like my own. (it won't be mine until after the survey in March of 25. The reason is to keep mice, ground hogs etc further from my home. With a very large amount of birds of prey, the varmits need more cover to survive. After 2 years of cutting, it does look like lawn, just like Haydude suggested it would. It will never be a low cut property, just want to spruce it up some, see what the possibilities are. I'm retired, not looking for full time maintenance of property.
I could easily see this property in the winter as snowshoe trails.

 

[Mtsoxfan]

I strongly disagree with sharpening your blades. A bush hog/rotary cutter, is not a lawn mower. The blades are thick for a reason, they are designed to destroy the brush, not make it look pretty. Once it's been cut a few times, you can sharpen them if you like for a nicer look, but not until you have it under control.

Sharpening them will cause them to wear out faster. The initial edge will wear out very, VERY quickly on tall, overgrown weeds!!! Odds are very good, that you will probably need to replace the blades before you get things under control, make them last as long as possible. Blades are easy to change if you have a big impact wrench, and horrible to do if you don't.

Ideally, you need to mow three times a year to get the weeds under control and allow the grass to take over. Two times a year would be the minimum. After two years, you should see significant improvement just from mowing.

After the first time, it will be significantly faster and easier after that. Consider the first mowing as the big task. Get it over with, and it will never be that bad again if you maintain it.

As for getting somebody to hay it for you, it would be my guess that they do not want to go through the time and effort to get it back into quality grass without any guarantee that they will be able to get hay from it in the future. Once you get it into decent shape, odds are a lot better that somebody might become interested in haying it for you.

Since 18 acres is a massive amount of land to mow, start out with an area that you can easily mow three times a year. Lets say it's five acres. Focus on that area the first year, and then the next year, add a few more acres to it when the five acres become easy to maintain.

I started out with a 6 foot cutter that I wasn't able to keep up with on my place. I focused on areas that we spent time on, like around the pond, and are walking trails, but other areas would get out of control since I only got to them every other year. Now I have a bigger tractor and a 12 foot batwing cutter, and I'm able to mow everything three times a year. The transformation has been amazing!!!!

Congratulations on the land!!!

That sounds exactly what I want to do. I was only looking into the hay route to have me happy I don't have to do anything, and a hayer happy he gets the hay for "free". If I can't find anyone to hay, which most likely is the case, I'll have no problem letting it grow with minimal effort. It looks nice as is, just looking to increase beauty. maybe areas of wildflowers etc. But I will be cutting to start just to see where it lands me. I'd rather be kayaking, hiking etc than maintaining another area every week/month. Tractor time is fun for me, as long as it doesn't become a "have to do chore".

I do have an electric impact as my current compressor will not keep up with the demand of an air impact. Couldn't imagine not using an impact

 

[duffer]

This will sound crazy, but if the acreage is just grass & weeds, with no brush or saplings, you might want to try to find a guy with an old school PTO sickle mower for the first cut. It would make a clean cut down to within 4" or so of the ground. In your part of the country I bet there are several guys that have sickle mowers you could rent.

After that you can bush hog it to whatever height you want. Could reduce the 2 yr time frame down to a few months to get it looking good.

 

[Mtsoxfan]

This will sound crazy, but if the acreage is just grass & weeds, with no brush or saplings, you might want to try to find a guy with an old school PTO sickle mower for the first cut. It would make a clean cut down to within 4" or so of the ground. In your part of the country I bet there are several guys that have sickle mowers you could rent.

After that you can bush hog it to whatever height you want. Could reduce the 2 yr time frame down to a few months to get it looking good.

Good idea. If you look at one of the pics, very few trees, don't think there are many, if any saplings in there.