Too scythe, or not to scythe...

Today I had an inquiry from a friend about mowing with a scythe...and I'm passing along the advice that I sent him...

First, I am not an expert in any sense of the word, second, I had a bad experience with scythes when I was much younger, the one that I was given to use was heavy and dull - both of which made for a bad mowing experience...so I did a little research before I purchased one myself.

One of the first things that I learned was that there is a difference between European and American scythes - this was best explained in this article from the Scythe Supply.

The next step in learning for me was watching a mowing video - which shows what is possible...this one is of a 14 year old expert http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugSO54WKm8I

This Scythe buyer's guide probably contains way too much information for the casual reader but I found it to be very useful - and it caused me to begin looking for a local source to fit me with a good european style scythe and the tools that I need to maintain it.

Fortunately for me, this was about an hours drive away at http://mysticprairie.net/. Botan has a scythe shop and expertly fitted me with the correct scythe and was able to supply me with the instruction and tools that I needed to maintain my blade. He does ship scythes and accessories and you can e-mail him for a current price list. Botan also has a number of videos posted on youtoub http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdE3ZHRwo2c and other links from his website.

If you cannot find a local supplier of this quality here is another fabulous site that provides numerous blade choices and expert fitting http://www.scythesupply.com/index.htm.

If you want to look for a less expensive scythe, which has some maybe grudging endorsement from the scythe buyer's guide , Johnny's sells this "folding" one for a very low price. They also have an informational article on peening by scything expert Peter Vido. However, I would not purchase my accessories for sharpening and peening from Johnnny's.

Each person who is mowing with a scythe will need a sharpening stone and a holder for it that will contain water. It is essential to keep the blade sharp during mowing. I would start with just one hammer and anvil for peening (presumably not every blade will need to be peened at the same time) and I purchased a sandflex medium grain hand block for cleaning and polishing my blade after peening.