Good scything form is to put your non-dominant hand in your back pocket; use a gentle touch; keep it sharp. Here, I’m sharpening the blade, drawing a wet whetstone stone at a right angle to its edge along its length, eye-level and with hands on either side.
This is a frame from our video, A Policy of Neglect, an element of our thesis exhibition, borrowers and bullies. More about this video in the exhibition documentation.
Our rental’s lawn was meant to be kept trim, under 8 inches at all times, and this wore on us as the lot looked 80% lawn (Bridge st in Waterloo, the Bechtel side, where we lived with two men). We complied trimming the front lawn in the spring of 2021, but the house was on a hill and the backyard was below the street’s eyeline, so we let it go to seed. We harvested the grass by scythe when it was a yard tall, dried it, and tied it into bundles. That material found its way into our thesis show and helped to contribute to the title of the video, A Policy of Neglect.