Maintaining grass without gas

Joel Salatin, the godfather of this blog says he’s just a grass farmer. Ha! he’s actually a farmer of a significant number of animals and crops, but his meaning is clear. He takes care of the grass in the fields, and everything else falls into place.

To date I’ve been using a variety of tools for grass management which include a lightweight electric mower for the proper lawn around the house, a serious gas-powered DR mower for the pasture (hiking paths, electronet chicken fence), an electric weed-eater for trimming, and more. In general, I’m completely dependent upon oil or electricity. Not good.

Enter the scythe. After just a few sessions trimming the lawn proper and prepping the pasture for a new installation of chicken electronet fencing, I’m already loving this thing. At $200 for a complete setup, that’s well below the price of any of my existing tools, which are noisy, smelly, and more dangerous than this giant blade.

When you’re using a scythe, you don’t need eye/ear protection. In fact, I did a work telephone meeting last week while using it. Just a slight (and pleasant) woosh sound while you are working. And it is significantly more time efficient when compared to the overall time of the power tools including gassing up, charging batteries, and annual maintenance. Just grab the scythe + whetstone and off you go.

I’ll be selling off our other power tools for grass maintenance this month.