A Man and his Scythe

         I know that if I do a post that has scythe in it, I will probably get hits from gamers so I'll be up front and tell you that this post is actually about scythes.

       Yes, the same as yesterday, I am selling my scythe.

        Since I've been a child there have usually been scythes around me. My Dad had a scythe on the farm where I grew up. As little kids we'd play with the scythe from time to time like we played with everything else on the farmyard. It's funny we didn't do grievous harm to someone as we played with something as dangerous as a scythe. I only remember one time when my Dad used the scythe to knock down some tall grass in the yard. Dad probably bought the scythe on an auction sale for the monstrous price of 10 cents.

        After I finished high school I worked for ten weeks on the section maintenance crew for the railroad. One of the jobs we did that summer was to cut a two meter strip of  grass  from the ballast. This was done with the scythe as it was in the days before the railway invested in mowers . So I was actually paid for one weeks to cut grass with a scythe.

      Years later when I was somewhat established I was a sort of back to the land type and bought a resort lot that was completely covered with native vegetation. You guessed it. I bought a scythe to cut down some of the foliage where we could park a holiday trailer. I found the scythe on and acreage and the owner had probably done much the same as I...used the scythe once and decided to find some other method to cut grass.I only remember using the scythe once to clear some grass. (Sounds like Dad. ) The scythe has been kept securely in the rafters of my garage and has not been used since 1978.

     Now scythes have been a relic for many years. They were a relic when I was a child in the 1940's. So I think back to a time when scythes were actually used as there was nothing else to cut your grass with or to cut your crop. I have an appreciation of how hard these people worked before there was mechanization.

      So now it's come time for me to part with my scythe but not before I think about scythes in my life.