With the ground too wet to mow, it’s time to see if we can restore my dad’s old scythe to cutting condition. Here is how is looks now.

That’s looking really rough. I think we can get the rust off and give it a good sharpening, though.

Interesting that the blade is Austrian, but the handle is American style. I know nothing about where it came from.

I also have no idea what happened to the original handle.

That looks like an old chair leg!

Whatever. It works!

I do like the swoopy, ergonomic design of the American style handle. I took a few test swipes. It’s very light and easy to handle.

Dull as anything, though.

So that’s going to be a pet project, and will likely take several days. Since we’re not making hay, it doesn’t matter if everything is still wet when we scythe it. It just needs to get done. At this point, the grass is so tall and thick in the outer yard, we can barely through it. Plus, there’s all the mosquitoes hiding in there and, I’m sure, plenty of wood ticks, too.

I do wonder, though. We’ve got clouds of mosquitoes, but I haven’t been seeing any dragon flies. They eat mosquitoes. You’d think the abundance of food would mean a population explosion of dragon flies, too!

Perhaps they will show up later in the season.

Until then, we’ll be investing in lots of bug spray!

The Re-Farmer