One of my personnel markers of Spring is the moment when the sheep refuse even the sweetest hay in favor of the new grass growth, sparse as that may be. Thoughts then start to turn towards making the next crop. One of the first annual tasks in the hay meadow
Winter is somewhat of a quiet season for the scythe but for a number of years now Richard Brown, member of the Scythe Association of Britain and Ireland (SABI), has been giving fellow members an opportunity to get in a bit of winter mowing by cutting reed on the wildlife
We have added some more course dates for 2016. There will be Introductory Scythe Courses on Saturday 28th May, Tuesday 28th June, Wednesday 27th July, Saturday 6th August and Sunday 21st August. The course costs £60 or £50 concession. There will be a Peening Workshop on Sunday 3rd April, Saturday 9th July and Sunday
While researching Welsh scything terms I came across the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, a wonderful Welsh dictionary run by the University of Wales. Whilst checking on more mundane words such as “haystack” and “scythe” I came across a rich seam of specific historical terms. Under the word gwair (hay) there were
The “Cymru” in Scythe Cymru is, of course, the welsh name for Wales. A month ago I was talking about scything with a reporter from Lingo Newydd, a welsh language bi-monthly magazine for welsh learners. I have been learning Welsh for 5 years now and can hold a pretty passable
In autumn the scythe moves from harvesting grass to bracken, a task to which it is well suited. We harvest the bracken both to control it in the fields and to use it as a resource on the farm and garden. These two posts about the 2014 bracken harvest and
What a beautiful week of summer we have just had. Autumn activities were put on hold and we grabbed the opportunity to make hay while the sun shone. The shorter Autumn days meant we were often working out in the fields at sunset, sometimes finishing rowing up in the dark.