Scythe Association (Britain and Ireland), now with a WordPress Blog

Earlier this year, a small gathering of some of men and women interetsed in scything, decided to set up an Association. The new Scythe Association (Britain and Ireland), or SABI for short, had a further meeting at the West Country Scything festival, in June, and have now set up a website/blog.

Scything Association (Britain and Ireland) Blog

 

Scything Courses 2011

Hi All

This year, instead of dedicating set days for running scything courses, I am going to teach people on an individual basis. The cost will stay at £50, but for this you get one to one tuition, rather than share my time with five other people. Not as lucrative for me, but a much nicer teaching and learning environment.

So if you want some individual training, including freehand peening, and blade repair, get in touch. Either through this blog, or call me on 01507 588543.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

 

Deano

Scything and Swarm Eight

Today I had arranged to do some scything tuition, but had told Andy that I may have to pause to house a swarm. He picked up the peening pretty quickly, which was good, but by late  morning the sound of bees just kept getting louder. So I suited up, as did he, and we walked around the field looking for a swarm. There wasn’t one, but with thirteen colonies and a strong nectar flow, everywhere that you went sounded like a swarm.

I was pretty sure that at least one colony would go, so I did the rest of the session in my bee suit, and checked regularly. Again, no swarm. So we finished up, and I gave hime some lunch, and then, as he was interested in permaculture and Forest Gardening, I showed him around. On the way back down the hill, I saw some scout bees checking out the empty hive left strategically ready to use in the other field, and pointed them out, only to see more bees checking around the hive. No sooner had I said that there must be a swarm out, than I spotted a dark shadow on the far side of an apple tree, and had to say my goodbyes, and deal with the swarm. As I went back up the field, it was obvious that this was a big swarm, so I went and got my camera for a few pictures.

Scything at The Sustainable Smallholding

Hi All

I have another Blog dedicated to scything, The Grinning Reaper, which I started in order to avoid including any of  my money making activities in this blog.

HERE

I know that we all need to earn money, but I didn’t want it to get in the way of this blog, which is designed to inform. As a quick check of my posting history will reveal, I always have less time to post in the Summer, which has meant that neither of these blogs is getting enough content, with the Scything blog suffering the most.

Therefore I have decided to put all of my future scything stuff here, including course details, and dates. Hopefully this will make it all easier to keep up with.  It also makes a lot of sense. Over the last fortnight, have been using my scythe in my  preparations for  planting trees in my new Forest Garden, and it seems silly to try and separate the scything from the tree planting.

I hope that people who now find this blog through searches related to scything, gain from the other stuff on here, and that everybody else gains from additional scything content.

All of the best

Deano

Tree Planting day Tomorrow

Hi All

Tomorrow is a big day, as with a bit of luck, I’ll be finishing off the bulk of this season’s tree planting, with a bit of help. I have 500 Italian Alder, 100 Hazel, and 50 Cornelian Cherry to plant.

Whilst it would have taken me about two weeks to get this amount of trees in, I asked for help, and it looks like I’ve got about a dozen people, some of whom I’ve never met, coming to give me a hand. This batch of trees will finish the framework of my firewood/bee forage planting, and I will be adding the overstorey trees next Autumn, once these have established, and prepared the way. There will still be some trees to plant, but these are all seed grown trees, that I’ve grown myself, and they can go out a bit later.

Scything Festival and Courses

Hi all

Just a quick note to let you know that the 6th West Country Scything festival will be held on 13th June. More details can be found

HERE

I have also published dates for my own scything courses, which you can find

by clicking on the link below, if you’re interested.

HERE

regards

Deano

Using a Scythe to Cut Norfolk Reed

Sadly I missed an opportunity to go down to Norfolk, and take part in an experiment, to see how efficient an Austrian Scythe would be at cutting Norfolk Reed. The guy organising the weekend was Richard Brown, and he recorded the day, and published it on YouTube. You can see it by clicking the link below.

It seems to have worked well and the cradle/bow that they used could be used to help cut grain crops.

I hope that you enjoy the clip

Deano

Scything, Wheat, and Bees (again)

Well it’s been another busy fortnight, with the emphasis on Scything, but with some good news on both my bees, and Wheat.

The main focus has been Scything. I have helped some friends, taught and competed at the West Country Scything Festival, conducted a workshop in Kent, and run one of my scheduled courses here in Lincolnshire. I’ve just put details about the Scything on my other blog, and if you want to read more about it, please visit The Grinning Reaper

for more details.

The bees seem to be happy to help me out. I was called to a swarm just over two weeks ago, and managed to get a helper to take some pictures. here’s the sequence.

An Easy Swarm

Probably the easiest swarm ever.

Spread a sheet

The swarm is cut away from the tree, and lowered into a box.

Cut and Lower

The box is inverted, and a gap left for any stragglers to make their way in, before tying up the sheet.

Invert Box

The swarm is shaken out onto a sheet, placed on a ramp, leading into the hive entrance. the sheet helps prevent the queen getting under the ramp, and just hanging there.

Shake onto Ramp

Once the first bees go in, and decide that it’s a good home, they come to the entrance, and fan pheromones to call the rest of the swarm inside. Here the move in has just started.

The March begins

We tried to get a picture of the queen, but I’m not sure that we got her, and the clarity is poor.

Bees marching

Most of the bees are inside now

Almost in

I had promised a friend a swarm, but wasn’t sure whether to keep this one, or take it to him. My generous nature won out, and so these bees ended up with him. It seems that there is some sort of balance to doing good deeds, because a couple of days later this happenned.

Arriving

An effortless swarm

Going

Swarm Entering Hive

Gone

So much easier than collecting them, isn’t it. If you get the bait hives right, the bees will come to you, providing that you are the right distance from an existing colony. To put an even bigger grin on my face, I had another take up residence today. It was a smaller swarm, possibly an unmated queen, but I’m not complaining. Tomorrow I’ve got to put together some more hives just in case there are more to come.

Finally a quick word about the wheat. I counted the ears on one of my plants today, and there were 72. What an amazing result. I don’t know how much will escape the birds, but it certainly proves that the Bon Fils method works.

Take Care

Deano

Bees almost all in

Scything Weeds

Today I got my Scythe out for the first time, and spent an hour Scything weeds. I didn’t really need to, the weeds would have been there tomorrow, but I just fancied a bit of time with my scythe.

If any of you have visited my scything blog, you’ll know that I’ve been getting a new snath (handle) ready for mowing

Scything Blog Well it made me realise that it’s only two months to go until the Scything Festival, and that I need to get some mowing in. I took a few before and after pictures of the areas that I was going to mow, but they didn’t really show the difference clearly enough. With the weeds not being too big, and with me leaving them in situ after mowing, it’s not easy to see on a picture, how effective the scythe is. I’m putting in one set of the pictures, just to illustrate what I mean.

All in all I did about an hour’s scything, and got quite a lot done. I find that I need to start fairly modestly, and gradually build up to longer, more strenuous mowing jobs, otherwise I feel it in the morning.

Scythe used

Most of the weeds in the background are Ground Elder. I’ve eaten it cooked before, but tried it raw today. It was very pleasant, although like many wild plants, the leaves were a little tougher than the salad leaves that we normally eat. If somebody said that they had a vegetable that came back year after year, spread well, was good fodder for bees, I would have planted it for myself, but it is too invasive. As I do not use any artificial chemicals, I have no way of controlling it. Eventually it will get into the vegetable beds, and I’ll be growing prolific crops of Ground Elder. I’m probably going to have to keep boiling some up for the chickens. They’ve been eating some, but not enough to keep it in check.

One useful thing about scything, is that if you leave everything in a heap, or row, when you turn it over in the morning, there are always slugs there, waiting to supplement the protein intake of your chickens or ducks.

2009 West Country Scything Festival

2009 Scything Festival

Last week I attended a meeting to plan the 2009 West Country Scything Festival, which is the main Scything Festival in the Country. We will be running a large beginners course, for up to 32 people, and an improvers course. Both on Saturday 13th June. The Festival itself is on the Sunday, and is combined with the South Somerset Green festival. Details can be found at http://www.thescytheshop.co.uk/festival.html.

I will be teaching on the beginners course, having taught sharpening at the festival for the last two years.