A week full of mowing this week and all the better for it being different interesting conditions. Yesterday I mowed a garden which I’d previously mown with my scythe at the beginning of July. The grass had just grown back to 4 inches – too long for your standard lawnmower but perfect for the scythe. It was soft and clean to I enjoyed the opportunity to stretch out and mow 3m wide swaths. What a pleasure after the rushes and weeds earlier in the week.
At the other end of the garden is a beautiful, productive vegetable area full of beans, onions, potatoes and poppy 
flowers with paths between the beds only about 40cm wide. Some people have taken to using a tiny 40cm blade for this kind of work but I’ve developed a technique so that I could mow the grass using the same 75cm ‘profisense’ blade without damaging the vegetables. This is the kind of thing I am planning for my ‘Scythe Improvers’ course which I’ll be running in Cumbria next year.
During the winter I worked on a friend’s farm planting up some areas with a mix of hardwood trees. This week I’ve had two interesting days of work clearing the vegetation which has had all year to grow up in between them. For this kind of work a strimmer is a pain because the long stems get wrapped around the string case and a scythe is perfect. I used my ‘stoneblade’ (Hahnsense) which is a tough blade with a lot of curve to work over the uneven ground and a stonepoint to protect the edge if I hit a stone.
The weeds had certainly grown, with the nettles standing over a metre tall. The scythe was cutting well but the hard work with this kind of mowing is moving the stuff out of the way as it’s too heavy to windrow directly as with grass. Still, it was very satisfying to clear my way through it and by the end of the day the trees were a lot easier to see and none of the guards were damaged even though I cut right up to them.
In amongst the nettles were a few good-sized hogweed plants as well. When cutting thicker material there’s a tendency among folk to want to hack or to think they need a ‘bush blade’ but actually most blades will cope with this sort of work if it’s sharp and you concentrate on using a slicing motion. These weren’t the giant hogweed variety but I’m sure the scythe would deal with those just as efficiently. Also, since you’re far away from the actual cut and it’s a smooth slicing action I think there’d be less chance of being affected by the sap which can cause the skin to be photosensitive and burn. I’ll talk to some conservation groups about giving it a try.
For the second day I was in a different, wetter field mowing rushes on possibly the wettest day of the year. Again the rushes are very heavy and lie flat over the sward. I found it easier to mow under them and then periodically move them out of the way with my foot rather than use the scythe so as not to risk putting excess pressure on it and to not strain my back and shoulders.
My first completed rake, post-fire, a double bow model based on one at MERL. The head is 695mm wide with 12 tines, the bows are made from cleft ash, shaved almost to size and then drawn through a dowel plate. These are much stronger than bows made from small diameter sticks which consist of juvenile wood and can therefore be much more graceful and slender while maintaining strength.
After last year’s success, Charlie Whinney and I again ran an intensive steambending workshop for four furniture makers demonstrating the amazing possibilities in bending solid wood using steam.
The course progressed through an experiment into the bending capacity of different timbers through the use of jigs, formers and freebending to create curves, spirals, fans, twists and even knots in green oak and ash. Sunday again saw us working to create a unique steambent chair with each student. I have enough steambending experience now that, despite the busy atmosphere and speed needed to achieve this, I can keep calm while working to keep everything on course, assist students with their chairs and help them with personalising the basic form into their own sculptural piece of furniture.
I’d been booked to run the mowing course over the whole weekend. This is a real advantage for the students as it gives us more time to practise the technique with the scythe, try mowing in different conditions and have a full session of peening. After setting everyone up we got straight out into the meadow. I always start the practical mowing section of a course with some warm-up and some tai-chi exercises which form the basis of the mowing movement. The grass here was long and tough but motivated by enthusiasm the group quickly got to work and were cutting healthy swaths through the sward.
For beginners, one of the most challenging aspects of using a scythe is sharpening and I’ve been working out the best way to teach this effectively and safely. Kneeling with the tip of the blade on the ground makes the process more stable and also enables the student to see the edge and the relation between it and the stone. For this course I’ve also introduced some kevlar ‘cutproof’ gloves as this is a time when I’ve heard that beginners can cut themselves. I think that with proper instruction and supervision, all aspects of scythe use are safe but the gloves add an extra layer of security. I’m keen to maintain my ‘no accidents’ record.
On the Sunday we arranged to meet at 7:30 for some ‘early morning’ mowing when the grass is still full of it’s own moisture and easier to cut. The weather wasn’t quite so kind to us with a light shower of rain. The extra weight of this on the grass made it difficult for people to appreciate the benefit. We did see the other advantage of the second day which was the improvement in everybody’s mowing technique as 
the advice and instructions fell into place with practice. I gave a demonstration to help bring together and show the various aspects of the ‘tai-chi’ style in unison. Christiane showed how to change grip and use the scythe differently to deal with grass which was lying over in many directions and cut around a tree to automatically mulch it.
The 30 Russian snaths for the Anna Karenina movie are coming along well. This week I’ve been in the woods looking for handgrips to fit to the straight snaths. I’m using the opportunity to try out a few ideas for designs of grip, with different natural curves and some carved grips. Along with Viv Goodings, who’s organising the extra for the mowing scenes, I’ve decided to fit the grips and tune the snaths for each person once we get to the site.
I’ve been away in the White Carpathian area of Czech Republic, taking part in a conservation project to manage 6ha of upland pasture for wild orchids using scythes. You can read about the 
The environmental charity Kosenka, based in Valašské Klobouky, has been working to preserve the forests and meadows of the White Carpathian mountain region since 1981. Headed by the charasmatic Mirek Janik, their work includes running educational programmes, an ecological advisory service and practical conservation work including Kosení, a 2 week project each summer mowing and making hay using scythes on 6ha of steep pastures. Of this, 2ha is owned by Kosenka and the rest by local sheep farmers who help with the harvest in exchange for the hay. The project is funded through the state as the meadows are valuable sites for wild gladiolus and rare orchids and the regular mowing and grazing are important management techniques for their survival.
Although the scythe is in fairly common use in Czech Rep and we saw snaths and blades for sale in the town, there is no formal association related to it so on the first evening Christiane and I described the Scythe Associations of Austria and Britain and their activities. Most of the volunteers were new to mowing and the only scythes available were Russian made with straight snaths so on the morning of the first work day, we led an introductory workshop on the swiss snath and tai-chi mowing style. I also gave advice on how to select the right size of straight snath.
The weather the previous week had been unsettled so our first job was to finish turning and rowing up the hay which had been cut, ready for the farmer to bale. We worked with handmade wooden rakes and forks which were very well designed and made. Mirek told us that it is becoming more and more difficult to find good tools as the old craftsmen are disappearing and now all that’s available are cheap versions in the agricultural merchants.
The next morning was our first of mowing. Up at 4am we carried our tools up the mountainside to the Dobsena reserve – 1.5ha of steep meadow looking out towards Slovakia. The previous day we had explained how it is more comfortable to mow diagonally across a slope but this is obviously not the Czech way and we set off straight downhill! The meadow was full of wild flowers and herbs so that with each cut of the scythe, a dozen or more species were mown and the air was filled with a wonderful cocktail of smells. Afterwards, many people collected bunches of herbs to dry- my own harvest was St John’s Wort for tea.
It was a real treat to be mowing as part of such a big group and seeing how fast the meadow was cut. As the morning wore on and the sun crept up over the horizon we were kept refreshed by deliveries of either mountain spring water or a shot of the local slivovic – plum brandy.
On the final evening a wreath of woven grasses, a hayfork and scythe led the procession up to one of the meadows were we heard Mirek describe the importance of these projects, not only for the meadow and wild flowers but to maintain the traditions of mowing and haymaking and to bring people together for work, learning and social interaction.
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