Sycthing Wednesday 20th September 2017

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In conjunction with Bumblebee Conservation our little team of volunteers the local BCT officer, Sinead, and Simeon our conservation officer, took part in a training session on Scything.

A happy team

I am a bit of a convert having seen Veronica swishing through our Snipe refuge area a few weeks ago.

Paul Thornton from the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales facilitated in a simple straightforward way.

Listen up!

The scythes are all brand new from Scythe Cymru near Carmarthen and are nothing like the tool I first used over 30 years ago, which had a blade of bonded cast iron and was so heavy it put me off the utopic idea of "mowing a meadow".

We covered the assembly, personalisation, honing (sharpening) and techniques involved before lunch then we got stuck in to some easy sward before tackling what Paul described as "not the best sward to learn on" but we soon developed a technique which worked and delivered results.
The tough Sward
At the end of the session everyone was impressed by the quantity of "arisings" that needed to be raked up and removed.
a few bales worth of arisings




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