the finer points of using a sickle?

My father used both scythes and what he called hooks right up to the 1970’s , some of our land was too steep to safely manoeuvre a wheeled tractor on. One hook was the normal short length handle the other had a long one to reach down into the edge of ditches. By the 1980’s his body was too worn to continue and the tools just hung in a shed and when I came to dispose of things following his death and Mother selling up the small holding the handles had succumbed to Woodworm. I kept one hook and it is definitely the shape of what is called a Sickle on the Soviet Flag with a smooth curved blade. Now re handled I use it frequently, kept well sharp it makes short shrift of cutting down briar etc and the best thing it does it reasonably quietly, unlike the weed basher my neighbours employ under the euphemism of “gardener” who is deaf and is determined to make anyone else nearby deaf as well by operating a petrol strimmer flat out with an exhaust that has broken but can’t tell because of his condition. A sharp Sickle would likely be quicker as well. If my neighbours were not so nice people I’d seed the hedge with with lengths of stainless steel model aircraft control wire and jam his bloody strimmer up. Some in modern society think everything has to be done with an engine or motor.

GH

And by te time you have got the mechanival beast, adorned yourself with the right safety kit and got it started, the old fashioned way would have been quicker.

Wear gloves. If your hands are not work hardened you will have blisters within 5 minutes. Also, of course, added protection.

However, at the age of 85, I tend to let machines do as much of the work as possible.

True.

Never mind blisters on the wielding hand.

I wear a cut-resistant kevlar glove on the hand not wielding the sickle! (5 pounds or less...)

Woven kevlar, non-sweaty, and I feel much more comfortable vigorously hacking with a razor-sharp toothed blade with my hand at least marginally protected.

Thomas Prufer

I just find that, with _some_ machines on _some_ tasks, things can go wrong very very quickly (much quicker than my reflexes, at any rate).

Yup, keep the fine point out of your ankle :-)