scrantling

We scrantled two acres today.  Well, not two acres, but the daffodil lawn and the long grass in the lower part of the garden.  It hadn't been cut since last winter, and was ceasing to be a thing of beauty, and approaching that dangerous stage where, if we keep getting rain, we can't cut it because it is wet, and then the grass all falls over and it really is impossible to cut at all.  The first half of September is the time to do it.  We visited Great Dixter on this day, nine years ago, and their meadows were all cut down.

The scrantler is a petrol driven power scythe.  The Systems Administrator bought it at Chelsea some years back.  We had parted company for an hour or so as we usually do, each to look at their favourite bits at their own pace (the floral marquee in my case) and when we met the S.A. said 'I've bought you a present' and I had visions of a stainless steel water feature.  In fact it was the power scythe, which turned out to be much more useful.  Before we had it we cut the long grass either by smashing into it with the lawn tractor on its highest setting, which caused the engine and gears to whine horribly and can't have done it any good at all, or else I walked up and down swinging a heavy duty strimmer.  That was punishingly hard on the back and I am definitely too old and stiff for that sort of caper nowadays.

The power scythe was soon christened the scrantler, in homage to Stella Gibbons' peerless book (thought the film version with Kate Beckinsale before Hollywood ate her, and a young and ridiculously handsome Rufus Sewell was pretty good as well).  We both make references to Cold Comfort Farm, with cries of What about the spring onion harvest, that be man's work, when there is some heavy duty task to be done, clettering dishes, and I did, F. Poste as a rejoinder to a repeated question.  Sometimes I feel like Aunt Ada Doom, with my enthusiasm for looking at the church of any village I visit (Wymondham,see 24th March; Clavering, see 12th August), and anything by a journalist with an unlikely name is likely to remind me of Flora's conclusion that Mr Mybug must be a genius, otherwise he would have changed his name by deed poll.

The scrantler chops down the long grass in a slightly ragged fashion, but the cuttings can go on the bonfire heap, and once the surface of the lawn is exposed to the sun and wind and dries out some more, the S.A. will be able to go over it with the conventional mower.  My job is to rake up the fallen grass and help load it into the trailer.  An awful lot comes off, but it hasn't been cut all year.  We always disturb some toads in the course of this exercise, ranging in size from tinies smaller than my thumb to big fat ones.  Fortunately they seem to be able to duck down below the height of the cutter blades, though it must be terrifying for them as the machine goes overhead.  Most of them instinctively make for the nearest edge of the lawn, and I always wonder how they do that, though one small one today was heading back towards the middle.  We pick them up carefully and put them in a border before they can be scrantled, or raked up.

My remaining task is to cut the sloping side of the daffodil lawn by hand, as it is too steep for the machine, and to cut the tufts on it, as there isn't room to get the lawn tractor in and it is very uneven due to the huge number of anthills.  I expect the woodpeckers will deal with some of those soon enough.  There is quite a lot of work still to do,but the key thing is that  the weather-critical part for which I need the Systems Administrator to muck in, as I can't even start the scrantler, is safely done.  A good afternoon's work.