Finally spring is in the air – even in Austria. It feels we’ve waited a long time for it to come. With it the grass in the meadow I’m taking care of has started to grow but I could still see the marks of the mice; hills, passageways just under the surface and all the rubbish that was either blown into it or thrown or forgotten by children.
So Saturday was the day when I went to clean the meadow. It feels great to walk through it and see all the different grass and flowers starting to grow again. Meanwhile I picked up garbage, stones and sticks and used the rake to flatten mouse hills and pathways.
I do this to save my blades getting blunted because of mowing into them.
I also raked away some of the old grass. Some kind of grass, even though mown the latest possible in fall is making thick mats and if I didn’t rake it, it would be so much more work to mow it. All this is preparing for mowing with my scythe, which I can’t wait to do.
I like to get in touch with the meadow before I start mowing it. I can decide by the look of it where I’m going to start mowing this year – it will be the place where I can see that the grass is thicker already and I can tell the bits were it is going to be really easy to mow because of what is growing there – Ranunculus spp. – “Hahnenfuß” as we say in Austria. It is poison and farmers don’t like to have it in their fields but to me they have a nice yellow color and are easy to mow. If I mow them shortly after they have started to flower they will not spread too much.
I also carried a paper bag with me to pick ingredients for our dinner; young leaves of yarrow (Schafgarbe), dandelion (Löwenzahn), sorrel (Sauerampfer), buckthorn (Spitzwegerich), daisies (Gänseblümchen) and pilewort (Scharbockskraut). Where I live it is not very common to go and get your salad from the meadow but I’m happy to see that since I’m taking care of it (3 years) more and more Turkish women are doing the same. And this is what it’s there for – to be eaten. Another good thing of more people walking through the meadow – the mice don’t like it too much 🙂
The week before last I went to London to install the steambent oak staircase bannister with Charlie Whinney. For me this was an important installation. I had made the former which we bent the oak around in the workshop so it was more satisfying than usual when everything fit beautifully into the space. I am the first person that Charlie has trusted to build such an important former.
Meanwhile, whatever happened to the Epcot ball origami project? I took my half of the units over to Austria and left them with Christiane to assemble – she’s much more patient with these things that I am. I’m glad I did, it’s even more tricky than it looks. So far she’s put it together and taken it back apart 4 times working on getting the pattern correct. The current plan is to make the two halves separately and try to join them. I’ll let you know when it’s done, can’t wait to see it myself.
You can keep your satellite-guided combine harvesters and robotic milking parlours, according to “1001 Inventions that changed the world” edited by Jack Challoner “The scythe is often ranked among the world’s most significant advances in agricultural implements of the past thousand years.” It allowed workers to stand up, gain a power advantage through leverage and increase daily production from only 0.75 acre to over an acre. Even more than that, by the late 13th century the addition of a cradle doubled grain harvesting productivity and retained it’s position until the arrival of the mechanical reaper in the 1830’s.
For this particular job, we’ve developed a new form of bending compression strap which has made the work a lot easier.
Six pieces of oak are loaded into the steamer at a time which is kept running all day. The steamer features a faceplate with slots for the wood. These keep the boards spaced apart so the steam can circulate and also minimise the amount of steam lost when the door is opened. Many of the pieces were bent in two parts, first around a tight floor mounted former and then free bent around the former. Working like this requires a good team who can see what’s happening, communicate and work together well. The wood is cooling all the time so there is a time factor but it’s important to stay calm and work carefully so as to achieve the right shape and not break wood.
The base of the bannister features four pieces bent in an ‘S’ curve. Since both faces of the timber will now be on the outside of a curve this is a technically more challenging shape. These curves were achieved by steaming first in the steambox for the initial curve and then through use of a steambag, a sleeve of material which covers the area of the second bend and inflated with steam.
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