Sepp Holzer is no stranger to the scythe. He harvests his grains with one. He will be in the Midwest in May, teaching urban permaculture. For info see http://teasso.com/The-Rebel-Farmer-comes-to-Detroit/

Prerequisite reading for those of you who are going, or for info for those of you who can't: Sepp Holzer's Permaculture http://www.amazon.com/dp/160358370X/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp_3NTJpb0XV3WCJ

Also see the DVD's available at http://www.perma-dise.com/products

Baby, it was cold outside! 15 degrees F and breezy! Hence my yeti hat. The snow at the base of the grass, had fallen as wet snow on a warmer day, so it had frozen to be quite firm, and added a lot more resistance to each scythe stroke. So at 2:38 you can see how I really have to put my weight into each stroke. It was also too cold for a wet whetstone, so I just used it dry to hone the blade. I use the reed canary grass for straw bedding in my goose house.

This is Crabapple farm in Chesterfield, MA. Tevis is harvesting the wheat using an European scythe and the sickle follows.

  I first saw this film in the 1990's, at a workshop for community gardeners, in Minneapolis, MN. I was absolutely delighted by it. I had already been long inspired by Fukuoka's methods, but I hadn't heard of Ruth Stout before. Seeing how she gardened motivated me to try growing potatoes under hay mulch, like she does. The only problem was where to get the hay? Small hay bales were becoming rare. Small, organic bales even more so. Most organic farmers make big round bales now. Horse hay could still be sometimes found in small bales, but it wasn't organic. Did I really want to grow organic potatoes, in non-organic hay?

  I grew up on a horse farm, and I knew very well how problematic it is to produce your own baled hay on a small-scale. New haying equipment is expensive. You needed a tractor, a mower, a hayrake, a baler, and a wagon. Cheaper, used equipment breaks down all the time. If you hire a neighboring farmer to make hay for you from your land, they were usually bailing their own hay at optimal haying times, and get around to your's later. Buying hay can also be expensive. You have to pay for the hay, plus delivery. Or you need to own a truck to go get it yourself. And you don't have any idea of how many weed seeds are in it. Plus, I wanted to grow organic vegetables, and therefore I wanted organic hay.
   One day while watching an episode of the TV show, "Gardening Naturally", with Eliot Coleman, I saw the solution. Eliot was demonstrating the use of an Austrian (German) scythe for cutting green material for his compost pile. He grew a patch of alfalfa just for this purpose. He also went out around the neighborhood and mowed people's overgrown, empty fields for more compost material. "Aha!", I thought. I could get an Austrian scythe, and make my own hay for mulch!

Freehand peening is much easier to learn, if you grew up using a hammer of some sort. I remember learning how to use a hammer as a young boy, from my Dad, and also from my neighbor who was a carpenter. It took a lot of practice for a young kid, to develop the hand-eye co-ordination necessary, to smoothly pound a nail straight into the wood, without missing the nail or damaging the wood. Whenever my Dad, or my neighbor was working on a carpentry project, I would be given some scrap wood, some nails, and an old hammer, to keep me busy and out of the way, but also to help me learn how. I was encouraged to practice. Learning how to use a hammer was considered an essential skill. However, that was back in the days before cordless drills, and pneumatic nail-guns. Now, even I seldom use a regular hammer, other than to occasionally hang pictures, or pound in fencing stakes. For most projects, I use screws and a cordless drill, because that way I can take it apart someday, and re-use all the materials. Cordless drills and pneumatic nail-guns have become so common place, that my local farm store recently put most of their nails on clearance. I still know how to use a hammer, however, and I assumed that everybody else does as well. It's such a simple skill.