Meadow mowing and path clearing

One part of managing a meadow is mowing; this is back breaking and hot work but must be done to allow the shorter stemmed flowers to see the sun and provide valuable food for our honey making ladies, the bees.

At one end of the meadow is a people area with comfrey and other flowering plants the bees like and nettles that the tortoise shell butterfly caterpillars like to eat (and so do we in soups!). These plants can be a problem to humans but instead of removing them they are just cut back from the paths, as with many jobs the traditional tools are the best so for this task we use hooks and sickles.

Traditional sickles.

Quill and Pin

Fishing for carp the old way is a challenge to those used to fixed spools, bite alarms and artificial baits.  To add a bit excitement to a small commercial fishery I sometimes visit I decided to chase the carp there with traditional equipment and baits. I must admit that although my equipment is traditional most of it benefits from modern engineering and materials

the quill and pin

Using a Froe

I used my new froe to split some willow branches into strips that I will using in a project I have going on at the moment. The willow branches were quite thin and had some awkward knots which meant they do not split straight all the way down, this is not to much of a problem because I have cut them thicker than needed so I can correct the shape with a draw knife or spoke shave later.

Here are some photos of how a froe is used...

An Unusual Tool

I was lucky today to meet up with a blacksmith I know who makes tools from the Roman and Medieval periods, many cases the tool hasn't changed since the Roman or Medieval periods because they work so well. He makes tools by hand with hammer and tongs and also makes the ash handles himself. Today he had a tool I was thinking of trying to find just last week as we were taking good sized straight lengths of branch out of the hedge, he had a froe.

Billhooks and other tools

Hedge laying has a specialist range of tools designed to the job well. These tools, like hedge laying styles, very in design around the country and from blacksmith to blacksmith. Here are some photos of the tools we used to lay a hawthorn hedge this week.

Some hedge laying tools