Beth

Yes, everything is always changing, positive and negative ions in the air, humidity, all kinds of subtle invisible things going… I live on the side of a deep valley. In some weather conditions, I can hear my neighbours talking on the other side, a mile away, as clear as if they were here.

Re the fear of harvest failure, it’s to do with the speed of getting it in. It’s much easier to get a single day window in the weather right, than a three week window, when weather ( here ) is so changeable.

Not saying that farming isn’t a hard job though. It’s a difficult job, requires great skill and knowledge to be successful. I think it will get much harder, even impossible, in the future, because of climate change, which will lead to increased frequency of extreme weather events. Seems that’s already begun.

As I see it, the fundamental change ( from scythes to combine harvesters ) was a change from a time when the primary purpose of farming was to produce food, for the farmer, labourers, local community.
Nowadays, thats not the purpose. The purpose now is to make money. That’s a big difference.
In other words, what occurred was the industrialisation of subsistence farming.

Industrial farming ( agri-business ) may be more ‘efficient’, in the sense that it produces more, which is what is required to feed all the people in the cities, but it radically changes the relationship between humans and land.

Once humans thought of the land as something sacred, and the fruits of labour were a gift from the Earth. Now, the land is just a huge factory floor, which can be exploited, abused, in any way that is profitable. The animals are also degraded, from sentient beings into widgets, units of production. As you said, ‘competing in a global market’. That might make sense to accountants and economists and politicians and investors, but the problem is that it makes no sense ECOLOGICALLY.

We are biological creatures. If we trash the biosphere, we destroy ourselves. That’s what we’re doing. Land use and farming is just one component, of course.

I’m not sure how fully the modern farmer is released from fear of harvest failure, unless merely to the fear of personal failure. I recall an Iowa friend’s story of a farmer baling hay alone at night under artificial light, being sucked into the baler.

Yes, there are subsidies, cheap fuel and – in the US at least – generous credit terms. But with all this help, the farm operator still is hard up against the unknowns of nature- the timing and intensity of rain and frost- and is competing in a global market.
- Bob Wise

Learning to use a scythe is one thing. Not as difficult as, say yoga or tai chi.

Learning to make a scythe is something else, I’d say it’d take years to become good at the blacksmithing and the woodwork, especially the blade.

But there’s something else, that’s missing. You can learn the ‘how to do it’. But then there’s the ‘when to do it’.

Those links mention particular days, the right day to begin cutting. What’s more, particular times of the day. When the grass is weighed with dew, before the sun rises, for instance.

The actual chemistry of the grass changes through the day. People who make their own dyes know this. Foliage gathered at one time of day can produce a different colour to foliage gathered at another time of day.

In the old days, getting the hay or oats successfully harvested was a matter of life or death. No kidding. Now it’s done with convoys of contract workers, monster machines roaring, shrieking, thundering, with flashing orange lights and working after dark by headlights. What used to take three weeks is done in nine hours, the whole procedure fueled by intensive input of petrochemicals, from manufacture of the machinery to fertilizer to the final wrapping in plastic.

As I understand it, in terms of joules, or however such things are measured these days, the farmer is actually putting more energy in, than they are getting out from the crop. Which is kinda insane. Like spending more money travelling to work than you get paid for the job. Of course, it doesn’t seem that way, to the farmer, what with cheap red diesel, subsidised fertilizer, ignoring the true cost of the externalities, like compaction of soil, like the pollution of oceans and atmosphere, and so forth.

Farmers like it, because they are released from that age-old fear, that the weather might change and ruin the harvest.

The first line of the story of the Apocalypse, the Armageddon, the Great Die-Off, must read :

‘ That summer, there was no diesel… ‘

In the past, people stayed in one place for a lifetime. Knowing the weather, the right time to start, became intuitive. With no forecasts on the tv, you just ‘felt’ that it was the right moment to begin, looking at the field, looking at the sky, and remembering every previous year’s experience. How could a novice today learn THAT ? It’s not something that could be taught on a course is it. It’s different in every part of the country. Even different between neighbouring farms and adjacent fields, depending on soil, aspect, height above sea level…

What happens when climate chaos means every year has ‘extreme weather events’ ? Without reasonable predictability , nobody will be able to gauge the right thing at the right time anymore…

http://www.applewarrior.com/celticwell/ejournal/lughnasa/wales.htm

Scythe Connection, lots of cool stuff.

One day, a huge fire started in a forest that was home to several animal species. All of them were terrified and aghast, watching the disaster helplessly. “What’s going to happen to us? What will become of us?”
During this pandemonium, only one tiny hummingbird was busy, going to get a few drops of water in its beak to throw on the fire. He flew back and forth non-stop from the river to the blaze.
After a while, the armadillo, irritated by the hummingbird’s pathetic efforts, said: “Are you a fool! You don’t believe that with these drops of water you’re going to put out the fire?!” The hummingbird responded: “I know I won’t, but I’m doing my share.”
Every animal was affected by this reply and got to work. Each one did its part and they succeeded in saving the forest.

When you see a hummingbird, think of its determination. We each have a responsibility to the world. Regardless of what happens, if we put our minds to it, we all have some power.

http://www.scytheconnection.com/index.html

General info.

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Scythe

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+scythe+historic+tool+on+the+modern+homestead.-a0219898333

Scythes and Scythians…

“According to the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities of Sir William Smith (1830-93), the scythe, known in Latin as the falx foenaria (as opposed to the sickle, the falx messoria ), was used by the ancient Romans; for illustration, Smith shows an image of Saturn holding a scythe, from an ancient Italian cameo.

According to Jack Herer and “Flesh of The Gods” (Emboden, W.A., Jr., Praeger Press, NY, 1974.); the ancient Scythians grew hemp and harvested it with a hand reaper that we still call a scythe. Cannabis inhalation by the Scythians in funeral rituals was recorded by the Greek Historian Herodotus (circa 450 B.C.E.) in the early 5th Century B.C.E. The nomadic Scythians introduced the custom to other races such as the Thracians.

The scythe appeared in Europe during the 12th and 13th centuries. Initially used mostly for mowing grass, it replaced the sickle as the tool for reaping crops by the 16th century, the scythe allowing the reaper to stand rather than stoop. In about 1800 the addition of light wooden fingers above a scythe blade produced a form of scythe called the cradle which soon replaced the simple scythe for reaping grain and mowing other tall vegetation such as reeds.”

http://www.reference.com/browse/scythe

The scythe as a practical farming tool

http://1812garden.hamiltoncollegeblogs.com/index.cfm/2008/12/10/The-Scythe-as-a-Practical-Farming-Tool

Hungarian scythe

http://mek.oszk.hu/02700/02790/html/60.html

The mowing of a field, superb piece of writing by Hilaire Belloc

http://bartleby.net/237/11.html

Thought this very interesting and useful to know

“Many antique tools are “rusty,” however unlike most rusty tools the rust is always small-grained and even. This is because the tool has been “browned,” that is intentionally rusted and preserved. A full browning treatment involves cleaning the tool to bare steel, applying a rusting agent (such as salt or salammoniac), allowing it to rust, removing all rust, reapplying the rusting agent, allowing it to rust, removing all rust and so on until the coat of rust is very even and “solid,” that is that the rust won’t flake off even when struck against a hard object. At this point the tool is finshed with linseed oil, then waxed. In this manner the rust itself provides a means of preventing further rusting. It is amongst the oldest methods of preserving iron and steel, and in some cases is still used today.”

http://hotrodjones.blogspot.com/2009/10/hand-tools-scythe-pt-1.html

Scythes in hay making art.

http://www.hayinart.com/003277.html

http://www.permacultureforum.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=849&p=4151#p4151

The very best lawn mowers are sheep, rabbits and geese. They all leave messy droppings though, maybe that’s why our modern ‘hygenic’ culture dislikes them, and prefers carcinogenic petrol fumes, but at least they give something to eat as a bonus