Brush Cutter Attacks Roadside - Karen Goat Keeper

The brush cutter came by the other day. I will admit the road was overgrown and needed trimming.

Plants love light and grow out toward it. An open road is inviting as it lets lots of light in. So the bushes and tall wildflowers had grown tall and wide. Branches reached out nearly touching a single vehicle going down the road.

road before the brush cutter came — Plants do tend to spread out to gather more light in the road. This does make the road seem narrower than it is. The feel is more of wilderness, of a green and leafy tunnel surrounding the road. Wildflowers add touches of color.

That wasn’t a problem to me. There are so few houses along the road and traffic should be slim. Of course that wasn’t the case.

Hundreds of vehicles drive by the house in a month. Almost all of them are ones that have never driven by before and never come back again. Still they complained about the brush.

The brown-eyed Susans were coming into bloom. The blackberry lilies were blooming madly. The curly top ironweed was spreading purple in places. Downy skullcap added blue to the mix. The elderberries and blackberries were getting ripe.

cutter went to bare dirt — Parts of the roadside were cut down into the dirt. Some plants were chipped off in their roots and tossed out onto the road. The objective seems to be to leave only grass yet the bees and other creatures need the native plants.

No one notices. They see only the reaching branches. And the brush cutter came by.

I do understand the need to trim back the exuberant growth, but this was a massacre.

The bushes are more than cut back, they are gone. Shattered stems an inch or two high mark where they once stood.

Six inch diameter trees are shattered into kindling scattered along the road.

tree limbs were shattered — The brush cutter is a huge, movable rotary cutter. The blade is quickly dulled by rocks and dirt. Thicker stems and branches aren’t cut, but shattered by the cutting blade.

Wildflowers vanished. Sometimes even the dirt was churned up leaving roots pulled up and shattered.

Bigger trees have their branches broken off from near the ground to ten feet up. These were eight feet off the road and weren’t growing out over the road.

People say how open and nice it is now to drive down the road. The brush cutter did a wonderful job. The plants will grow back.

road after the brush cutter went by — The road is bare. Lots more light shines in. Nothing is there to appreciate it now. The birds have moved elsewhere. The ground squirrels are staying up on the hill. Even the cats stay near the barn now.

Some plants will grow back. Some will come up as seedlings. The roadside will turn green again providing nesting spots and food for the birds along the road.

Then the brush cutter will return in the quest to make the roadside a golf green once again.

See the beauty of the Ozarks in “My Ozark Home.”