For any of you who missed it or would like to see it again, here is my appearance with Paul Heiney on the ITV Countrywise programme.
I’m pleased with how it turned out and think I managed to put my points across pretty well. Paul had a few attempts at his parts but I didn’t get any advance notice of what the questions would be or a chance to re-record what I said so it’s all off the cuff.
Watching it myself it’s interesting to see that Paul, like a lot of folk, expected it to be easy to use a scythe and the production team turned down my offer to spend some time teaching him how to scythe properly. Instead I had just a few minutes to show him the principles of the movement and I was actually quite pleased with his progress. During my Learn to Scythe courses, I make sure you have plenty of mowing time when I can watch and adjust your technique. Just like Paul, you won’t be an expert by the end of the day but you’ll have all the skills and knowledge you need to practise on your own and enjoy the process of improving your technique.
On Saturday a hardy group put on their waterproofs and faced the Cumbrian rain including Ken and Joyce who were on a round the world trip from their home in Australia. Ken told me they’d booked their tickets and then booked the Learn to Mow course as the second item and were enjoying the cooler weather in the UK! We did get a bit damp but it was mostly just heavy showers and didn’t get in the way of some great mowing in the post-haymaking grass.
Then on Sunday, contrary to the forecast, the sun came out for a new group of scythe beginners. They carried on the mowing and the two groups got around three-quarters of the orchard cut. They could see how close they were to completing the job and I had to drag them away from it so we could go and do some peening. When was the last time you had to drag someone away from cutting grass with a strimmer?
The final part of the weekend was peening the scythes with a discussion of techniques followed by some practise. Women are often put off by the thought of this so I was especially happy that Basia and Jane not only got the hang of it but enjoyed hammering as much as the blokes!
Day two started with peening and became a very in-depth discussion of how to shape the edge of the scythe, the various methods including peening jig and freehand peening using an anvil as well as digressions into scythe manufacture, blade designs and snath making. I really enjoyed having such and interested group to talk through the principles and ideas. Following the theory we had time for a practical peening workshop, each person either peening their own scythe or one of my practise blades. To finish off, we spent a couple of hours mowing a tricky patch of ground includng slopes, ditches, docks and obstacles to test the groups new skills to the full.
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