Site Contents
About Us

Contact Us

Events

Products

Scythe Buyers' Guide

Technical/
Instructional

Updates

Video

Home

Videos


New Video on YouTube! --

The End of Cheap Oil and The Rise of the Scythe

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dVv597m848s

*See also the new, improved edition at:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ugSO54WKm8I

Synopsis: A 14-year-old girl with a scythe, cutting circles around a tractor equipped with a mowing machine! Far-fetched? Today - perhaps. Tomorrow - the use of simple hand tools will make increasing sense in direct proportion to the rising costs, economic and otherwise, of operating oil-dependent machinery. Long live the power of human bodies!

There is no trick photography in this video; it is a genuine documentary of the efficiency of this ecological tool, the scythe.
Read more

Thanks to Alexander Vido (camera) Greg Hemmings (editing) and Jesse Cottingham. "Blowin' in the Wind" © Bob Dylan.


Our old QuickTime mowing video:

You will likely need version 6 or later of Quicktime Player to view this video. Download the most recent version (free).

Also on YouTube! Click here. The abbreviated description:

Short scenes demonstrating the versatility of a good scythe in diverse conditions--from "lawn" and field cutting to an "obstacle course" requiring precision mowing techniques. No audio--it got lost in the editing process. Some of the mowing is done by Ashley and Fairlight Vido. When this video was shot in 2003, they were 10 and 13 years old and already good mowers. They are not expending a lot of energy, because they have good tools and have learned the skill. Credits: Fairlight Vido, Greg Hemmings, Todd Snyder and David Patriquin.

The material presented here is a temporary substitute for a good video on hand mowing. It has neither a strictly "promotional" slant (showing off the scythe at its best) nor a truly "instructional" one (good sequential close-ups of the tool and body movements). We were advised that for a video to be easily played/downloaded, and also to accommodate modern attention spans, the length should not exceed five minutes. Attempting at the same time to present a variety of possible applications, most scenes are shorter than the ideal. However, it serves as an introduction for those who:
  • have never seen the scythe being used at all;
  • have always thought that this is a "man's tool" and cannot imagine how it can be wielded by a child (the girls in the video are 10 and 13 years old).
As well, it will demonstrate that a scythe can be used to cut very close to obstacles and reach places where a sicklebar, a rotary mower, or a string trimmer cannot--regardless of the height of the grass.

Video courtesy of
Greg Hemmings
and the Vido family
23 Jan. 2004
Modified 25 Feb. 2008
Contents Page