{"id":5484,"date":"2018-06-02T15:11:52","date_gmt":"2018-06-02T03:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/?p=5484"},"modified":"2019-10-29T10:41:34","modified_gmt":"2019-10-28T21:41:34","slug":"the-nom-nom-lawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/the-nom-nom-lawn\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nom-Nom lawn"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re starting with a pretty picture of a rose because links in Facebook insist on featuring the first picture shown in a blog post. Last week it was an ugly fly-swat<\/a> and I feel the need to up my aesthetic game. As you probably know, social media doesn’t reward reality unless it is either visually attractive, or downright shocking.<\/p>\n

\"Charles<\/a>

The beautifully fragrant R. ‘Charles Rennie MacIntosh’, kindly bought for my English Garden by Deborah<\/p><\/div>\n

Ok, on to the actual reason for this update.<\/p>\n

When I first posted about the English Garden<\/a> last spring, I finished with this un-Facebook-worthy-but-honest shot of the pretty bits surrounded by a veritable wilderness of long grass (you can see why I stooped to the gratuitous use of that photogenic rose).<\/p>\n

\"Weeds<\/a>

Weeds around English Garden<\/p><\/div>\n

On our arrival at the farmlet the grass around the English Garden became part of an unfenced paddock. Whenever the ponies grazed there electric fencing had to be put up, and then moved with them to the next location. It was a lot of work and the grass would grow to \u00a0jungle-like proportions between grazing rotations. Still, I called the area my Nominal Lawn. Because every English Garden needs a lawn, even if it exists in name only.<\/span><\/p>\n

All hail to the fencing crew though, because after Phil the Fencer and his lads completed a second round of fencing\u00a0late last year (the round I call our fencing extravaganza, for reasons outlined previously<\/a>) the English Garden gained an actual lawn. <\/span><\/p>\n

What used to look like this:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Horse<\/a>

Previous solar-charged electric fence. The same fence the horses once escaped through at 2am<\/a>. Note Summer’s yoga pose* as she reaches under the tape for a mouthful of extra yummy grass<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Now looks like this! You may just<\/em> be able to make out that the tree behind Summer’s backside in the first photo is the same one that’s in line with the gatepost below.<\/p>\n

\"Fence<\/a>

New post and rail fence. No more escapes and an ACTUAL lawn!<\/p><\/div>\n

After it became real, rather than nominal, we started calling the new lawn the Nom-Nom Lawn. It seems co-incidentally extra appropriate because there is usually at least one old bone lying around on the grass ready to be nommed<\/a> by one or other of the dogs.<\/span><\/p>\n

The long grass I showed you at the top of the page has gradually been tamed. And because the kunekune pigs, contrary to their advertised qualities as grass-eaters and not diggers, actually dig like billy-o, we are mowing. Yup, it was a fine plan to go mower-free, but in lesson number 4021 of my farming education I’ve learned that petrol mowers are more easily controlled than animal mowers. And anyway Favorite Stepson is open to bribes.<\/p>\n

\"Garden<\/a>

Grass near the English Garden looking marginally closer to something Vita<\/a> would recognise as lawn.<\/p><\/div>\n

So now I have an English Garden with a Nom-Nom Lawn and a fence for the ponies to hang their necks over. All is right with the world. Rule Britannia, and pass the cucumber sandwiches.<\/p>\n

* She’s doing a pretty good impression of\u00a0Trikonasana<\/a>, the Triangle Pose. It’s obviously a bit harder with four legs.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re starting with a pretty picture of a rose because links in Facebook insist on featuring the first picture shown in a blog post. Last week it was an ugly fly-swat and I feel the need to up my aesthetic… Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,33,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fencing","category-gardening","category-ponies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5484"}],"version-history":[{"count":67,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6858,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5484\/revisions\/6858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}