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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >I mow 3+ acres...with lots of trees and obstacles.  There are other
> areas which can only be weed-eated due to large rocks.  I suppose all of
> that together would be close to 4 acres that would need to be cut at
> least once a week, twice if it rains.  James, at one time, said how long
> it takes him to cut an acre, but I have forgotten.  James?  How long
> would it take you to cut 4 acres? Bearing in mind that James is an
> expert in this art.
> 
> 

It's a trick question.  Scything is a pleasure, not a pentance.   As far as 
the hay fields go (and they are just now ripening), in the early morning on 
dry days (which today isn't) while others are doing the milking and tending 
the other animals, I will sneak off to the lower hay fields and do, at the 
most, 1/8th acre, about 50' x 100'. By then I'm ready for breakfast.

Keep in mind though that for me the goal is not to "get 'er done" rather 
it's to be doing it.  By plodding along like this I will get four acres done 
in a month.  If I wanted to get the hay put up, I could do about four times 
that much and enjoy it far less.  Also there are five people in the household 
now capable of scything, alas, we don't have five feasible scythes but  
when we want to make haystacks we spell off and get quite a bit done.

Around the Center of the Universe Garden, corn fields, potato plots, 
perennial beds, berry bushes, orchard, and vinyard area is a lot of  quick 
growing 
grass.  Those plots have all been heavily manured over the past ten years 
or so and  the nutrients have leached out all over the acre and a half area 
and this supports some of the thickest grass growth one can imagine.  Not 
only grass but clover, vetch, plantain, yellow dock, and all manner of other 
high protein vegetation.    When it can be thus managed, we cut this thick 
growth, put it on screen racks and dry it thoroughly, then pack it away in 
old 
fiber sacks for feeding the rabbits and chickens in the winter.  You can 
raise up quite a bit of rabbit meat on this 'weed hay' alone.  

Since these areas are paths and corners and odd bits around fences and 
posts, the long grass blade isn't the best.  So I have one of those 
relatively 
cheapie drop forged short steel blades (brush blade) on a curved snath that 
stays oiled (snath and blade) down at the garden.  Since it is not damasked 
steel, I keep a common 6" mill file in my pocket and  sharpen the blade by 
moving the file straight down the blade (not with or against the edge but 
straight across it) and then lightly strop the other side in the same manner. 
 
This gives the blade a very slightly serrated edge and thus it cuts through 
the biggest clump of fescue with no effort at all.

It is much faster and much less effort than a string trimmer.  One simply 
moves the blade next to the fence or post, as always keeping the heel of the 
blade on the ground, and pulls the blade out.  It trims right up to the 
fence or trunk or post better than a string trimmer.

The idea is that the scythe and the file are there in the garden all the 
time.  On the way into the garden to get the evening salad, I pick up the 
scythe and mow down a bit, put the vegetation on the drying rack, and then go 
on 
into the garden.  You don't count it as separate work.  The area stays 
amazingly well trimmed.  

Now to be sure, it doesn't look like a golf course green.

The notion that power tools are that much less effort or time comsuming is 
largely a myth, be it grinders, saws, churns, planes, or mowers.  But in the 
case of a string trimmer, the machine loses out hands down.  The scythe is 
quicker and less effort.    The vibration of that cursed thing up one's arms 
will cause grievous injury.

---------------------

'The man who invented the steam drill
 Thought it was mighty fine
 John Henry cut through fifteen feet
 And the steam drill only did nine, Lord, Lord
 The stream drill only did nine,"