tool talk - the scythe

Everyone likes to talk about their reel mowers, and feel proud of them. Including my own little reel mower moment. I even saw a t-shirt this week "advertising" how cool and strong people who use reel mowers are. I don't feel quite that cool. Or strong, for that matter.

However, I am adverse to gas and oil guzzling equipment, and hate hate hate loudness. Sometimes to my detriment....I hate vacuuming, even. So when I come across a fine hand tool, I'm very happy. My Japanese pull saw is a beloved item, as is my worn wooden spoon for making relief prints (and sauces!). I have quite a collection of beautiful old hand tools that are still in service.

As you know, we've still got grass. (So suburban! So 1950s!) Go ahead, get your gripes out. We'll still have grass when you're done. I've refused to use a noisy, dangerous, weed wacker, and instead break my back doing yard work with nippers and trimmers (oversized scissors, really). We've got a big yard, so some of it suffers from neglect. i don't mind weeds, generally, since it draws all the neighborhood groundhogs to come and crunch. But this time of year we have lots of tall, DEAD weeds, and even I start to feel shabby.

All this is to say that a casa de abovegroundpool got a scythe. Except it's not really a proper scythe, since it has a shorter blade with two serrated edges. Ours is called a grass whip, though what it works great for is tall weeds. I don't know the proper name for this thing, but I know I'm excited about the new manual tool. We look like "proper" neighborhoodies now, and after only a couple hours of swinging.....the same time it would've taken someone with a nasty, noisy weed wacker.

Be strong. Be cool. Be quiet. Be modern. Use a scythe.