Scything....

[cwarner]

No argument from me Steve,  I was just stirring the pot.  Your talking to a guy with a 46" wide tractor mounted snow blower for an 8' wide, 50' long driveway... overkill, absolutely, but I can be done in 3 passes.

[EricU]

my dad had a scythe, not sure what happened to it.  He cleared a lot of land with one out in Iowa, don't remember seeing him use it once we moved to Virginia.  He cultivated a very large garden with a push plow.  Fortunately, he gave up on that before I was old enough to help.

[Boatman53]

For about ten years every fall I would cut the grass on my in-laws house in Maine. First couple of years I used a weed whacker but then found a scythe in the barn and used that ever since. It was quieter of course and faster.

<img src="http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/m628/boatman53/dbea34ec0dc76251f42f414cd3d89c6a_zpsa3684072.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo dbea34ec0dc76251f42f414cd3d89c6a_zpsa3684072.jpg"/>

Jim

[MichaelMouse]

No argument from me Steve,  I was just stirring the pot.  Your talking to a guy with a 46" wide tractor mounted snow blower for an 8' wide, 50' long driveway... overkill, absolutely, but I can be done in 3 passes.

Hmmmmmm.  I do 4, because I have to get the tractor back to the shed.  

Front mount, I hope, for the sake of your neck.

[cwarner]

You, front mounted on my John Deere 318

[Steve N]

<img src="http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/m628/boatman53/dbea34ec0dc76251f42f414cd3d89c6a_zpsa3684072.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo dbea34ec0dc76251f42f414cd3d89c6a_zpsa3684072.jpg"/>

Who mows the roof? I believe there would be critters living in that house just based on the vegetation on the roof.

[Boatman53]

I mowed it for many years. No critters (except the occasional mouse), it is a traditionally built Norwegian log cabin. The first pic of the house showed the water side and was covered with board and batten as the logs were starting to deteriorate. The house was built in 1954. 

Here is the front of the house.

<img src="http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/m628/boatman53/e900d41bdb4843e286d19f652dbc28d4_zps1b0fddaf.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo e900d41bdb4843e286d19f652dbc28d4_zps1b0fddaf.jpg"/>

Jim

[hbmcc]

For about ten years every fall I would cut the grass on my in-laws house in Maine. First couple of years I used a weed whacker but then found a scythe in the barn and used that ever since. It was quieter of course and faster.

<img src="http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/m628/boatman53/dbea34ec0dc76251f42f414cd3d89c6a_zpsa3684072.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo dbea34ec0dc76251f42f414cd3d89c6a_zpsa3684072.jpg"/>

Jim

  Shirtless, too?

We have one of those in our neighborhood. It's on an 18:12 pitch .... Don't ask me how they get the stuff to stick. It's green in the spring and brown every other season. (No rain in summer; and cold enough for grass to just crawl in the cold months.) Cedar shingles and skip sheathing over decent bed of insulation are still cooler for pitched roof homes--my location.

[hbmcc]

I think we have a spy in our midst. The following showed up a few days after the original post. Innuendo is the new language in the Web Age.

https://stevetomlincrafts.wordpress.com/...al-ground/

Steve included a nice video of the process. No spirits were disturbed.

[CedarSlayer]

I use a scythe. Most scythes are junk. Heavy things you hand to the help because they don't know what they are doing with them. Kind of like a cheap block plane. A well made scythe requires a bit of learning and a bit of awareness. Properly used a well peened and honed blade is amazing. A thin slice is made through a thin, but long, arched swath of grass. The long blade speeds across what it is cutting and a large section of the blade runs across each blade of grass, slicing it smoothly. Properly done your momentum holds up and you swing back and fourth in a gentle and balanced dance as you progress through the grass.

The problem is that this takes practice and skill. If someone just grabs a scythe and starts hacking, they are going to have just about the same luck as a power tool carpenter will have if I hand him a Japanese plane. In other words, none at all.