THIS is a mower!

[01rangerxl]

Originally Posted By: IndyIan

Also I don't really understand all the anger towards people doing and seeing things differently than yourselves.


I'm not angry. If they want to work harder to get less done than I can, go for it. The rest of their website suggests that the scythe is a replacement for power equipment. Sorry, it's the other way around! OPE, tractors, implements, etc. were invented for a reason, and it wasn't just to be evil and use resources. The hippie method isn't practical when you have a lot to get done.

 

[bigmike]

Originally Posted By: Jeepster_nut
Hey, it keeps her out of trouble! How many 14 year olds girls would even consider this activity? Not many around my neck of the woods thats for sure! lol


+1

This might be the first teenage girl I've seen do any work outside.

 

[IndyIan]

Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl
Originally Posted By: IndyIan

Also I don't really understand all the anger towards people doing and seeing things differently than yourselves.


I'm not angry. If they want to work harder to get less done than I can, go for it. The rest of their website suggests that the scythe is a replacement for power equipment. Sorry, it's the other way around! OPE, tractors, implements, etc. were invented for a reason, and it wasn't just to be evil and use resources. The hippie method isn't practical when you have a lot to get done.

Having to use your own body to do work does redefine what "needs" to be done though... The tradition of cutting acres of grass sure didn't start until the average guy could afford a riding mower right? And having the "perfect" lawn didn't become popular until chemical fertillizers and herbicides became available. I can appreciate the desire to do this but an area left naturally has all sorts of life that's eliminated with a lawn and you don't have to buy anything or spend your time to enjoy it.

I still split wood by hand, but I do it for a reasonable amount of time so it makes me stronger, not aching and injuring myself. I only need 2-3 cords a year so its not alot of work to spread out. But I agree if I was selling firewood for a living, I would have dedicated processor.

 

[engineerscott]

Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Also I don't really understand all the anger towards people doing and seeing things differently than yourselves.


I really hope you don't think that I have expressed any anger towards you. If you'd like to get back to nature, swear off power equipment (and automobiles if you're going to be consistent btw) that bothers me not one wit. I say more power to you. Now, on the other hand if you'd like to see your point of view forced on the rest of the world, then in that case we would have a problem, but so far you've not expressed that sentiment.

If you do decide to do the back to nature thing, and live by the sweat of your own manual labor I hope you keep us updated on your progress.

 

[brandini]

Originally Posted By: engineerscott
Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Also I don't really understand all the anger towards people doing and seeing things differently than yourselves.


I really hope you don't think that I have expressed any anger towards you. If you'd like to get back to nature, swear off power equipment (and automobiles if you're going to be consistent btw) that bothers me not one wit. I say more power to you. Now, on the other hand if you'd like to see your point of view forced on the rest of the world, then in that case we would have a problem, but so far you've not expressed that sentiment.

If you do decide to do the back to nature thing, and live by the sweat of your own manual labor I hope you keep us updated on your progress.

I was just going to quote what he said and follow it with "said the overly defensive person." But what you said is much better.

 

[Johnny]

Sometimes the old ways are good and lord knows, we all could use some exercise. But let there be no mistake about this site, the guy is a true capitalist and is doing this to make a profit.

 

[engineerscott]

My only problem was with the website referenced in the original post that seems to advocate the parking of powered farm equipment and replacing it with human and animal power. Humanity has been there and done that. You could park all of the mechanized farm machinery and replace it with human and animal muscle power. The only problem is that probably at least 6 of the 7 billion people on the planet would die through starvation. We simply can not replace modern agricultural techniques with the farm of 150 years ago without most people on the planet starving.

I actually know some environmental advocates personally and publicly that will openly say that such a reduction of the human population would be a good thing. This angers me no end because a.) they aren't really asking the rest of the world if they would like to die through starvation and b.) I don't see any of these environmental advocates voluntarily removing themselves from the human population pool.

 

[IndyIan]

Originally Posted By: engineerscott
My only problem was with the website referenced in the original post that seems to advocate the parking of powered farm equipment and replacing it with human and animal power. Humanity has been there and done that. You could park all of the mechanized farm machinery and replace it with human and animal muscle power. The only problem is that probably at least 6 of the 7 billion people on the planet would die through starvation. We simply can not replace modern agricultural techniques with the farm of 150 years ago without most people on the planet starving.

I actually know some environmental advocates personally and publicly that will openly say that such a reduction of the human population would be a good thing. This angers me no end because a.) they aren't really asking the rest of the world if they would like to die through starvation and b.) I don't see any of these environmental advocates voluntarily removing themselves from the human population pool.


I'm not a real farmer, but modern farming practice outputs in terms of nutrient values are pretty easily beatable by a guy in his back yard, maybe calories too, in terms of area needed and energy inputs. There is alot more labour per food unit of course, but you also save a lot of money, and seems like food prices are going up a well. We raise a couple pigs on pasture that would cost us $1000+ each to buy retail for example.

What a $1,000,000 in equipment, 8,000 gallons of diesel, 10,000 gallons of pesticide/herbicides, 500 tons fertillizer do, is allow 3 or 4 guys to make a mountain of corn while wrecking their soil, flooding folks downstream, and polluting alot. And that allows you to get lots of cruelly raised, flavourless, hormone and antibiotic laces nutritionally deficient meat, at low low prices everyday...

I think some level of mechanization is needed and sustainable but moving towards ever bigger machinery, more fertillizer, more centralization and globalization of food will result in more people starving rather than less. It is easy to undercut and destroy local "inefficient" food producers in African countries with cheap imports, and then buy up their land and grow cash crops for people in other countries...

 

[engineerscott]

Originally Posted By: IndyIan
I'm not a real farmer, but modern farming practice outputs in terms of nutrient values are pretty easily beatable by a guy in his back yard, maybe calories too, in terms of area needed and energy inputs. There is alot more labour per food unit of course, but you also save a lot of money, and seems like food prices are going up a well. We raise a couple pigs on pasture that would cost us $1000+ each to buy retail for example.

What a $1,000,000 in equipment, 8,000 gallons of diesel, 10,000 gallons of pesticide/herbicides, 500 tons fertillizer do, is allow 3 or 4 guys to make a mountain of corn while wrecking their soil, flooding folks downstream, and polluting alot. And that allows you to get lots of cruelly raised, flavourless, hormone and antibiotic laces nutritionally deficient meat, at low low prices everyday...

I think some level of mechanization is needed and sustainable but moving towards ever bigger machinery, more fertillizer, more centralization and globalization of food will result in more people starving rather than less. It is easy to undercut and destroy local "inefficient" food producers in African countries with cheap imports, and then buy up their land and grow cash crops for people in other countries...


Well, you got one thing right ..... you're not a real farmer.

 

[IndyIan]

Originally Posted By: engineerscott
Originally Posted By: IndyIan
I'm not a real farmer, but modern farming practice outputs in terms of nutrient values are pretty easily beatable by a guy in his back yard, maybe calories too, in terms of area needed and energy inputs. There is alot more labour per food unit of course, but you also save a lot of money, and seems like food prices are going up a well. We raise a couple pigs on pasture that would cost us $1000+ each to buy retail for example.

What a $1,000,000 in equipment, 8,000 gallons of diesel, 10,000 gallons of pesticide/herbicides, 500 tons fertillizer do, is allow 3 or 4 guys to make a mountain of corn while wrecking their soil, flooding folks downstream, and polluting alot. And that allows you to get lots of cruelly raised, flavourless, hormone and antibiotic laces nutritionally deficient meat, at low low prices everyday...

I think some level of mechanization is needed and sustainable but moving towards ever bigger machinery, more fertillizer, more centralization and globalization of food will result in more people starving rather than less. It is easy to undercut and destroy local "inefficient" food producers in African countries with cheap imports, and then buy up their land and grow cash crops for people in other countries...


Well, you got one thing right ..... you're not a real farmer.


Great post...

Keep the blinders on and thank your lucky stars you live where you live.

 

[Scoot_4_20]

Back in the good old days when people were not lazy and got exercise every day (if they wanted to eat). The more automated we get, the sicker we get, and I'm not surprised.

 

[engineerscott]

Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Great post...

Keep the blinders on and thank your lucky stars you live where you live.


Ah, we agree on one thing. I do thank my lucky stars that I do live where I live, where modern agriculture has freed mankind to the point where a very small fraction of our population (around 2~3% last time I checked) can feed the entire nation with food left over to export to the less productive regions of the world. This simply would not be the case were the techniques you advocate put into practice on a wide scale. I do come from a farming family and I know of whence I speak. Like I said, feel free to engage in your romantic ideals of mankind getting back to nature practicing farming as known say a hundred years ago. In fact, I think you should go off the grid, park your cars and all your powered farming equipment, and live only on what you can grow using the techniques you advocate and your own muscle power. In fact I challenge you to do so post haste. Check back in a year and let us know how that goes. Come on, put your manual labor where you mouth is.

 

[engineerscott]

Originally Posted By: Scoot_4_20
Back in the good old days when people were not lazy and got exercise every day (if they wanted to eat). The more automated we get, the sicker we get, and I'm not surprised.


As evidenced by the fact that people on average are living longer than they have in the entirety of human history?

Certainly obesity is a problem, and some people need to eat less (over eating being a byproduct of inexpensive food due to our record farming efficiency and the resulting historically low prices of food people pay these days). But the answer to the obesity problem is more self discipline, not rolling the agricultural clock back to say 1900. It is a fact that were you to do this vast portions of the world population would simply starve to death. A solution to the obesity problem to be sure, but not one most people would willingly sign up for.

And keep in mind, in spite of the obesity problem, the average lifespan of the average member of Western society is longer than any generation gone before. Most consider this a *good* thing.

 

[IndyIan]

Originally Posted By: engineerscott
Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Great post...

Keep the blinders on and thank your lucky stars you live where you live.


Ah, we agree on one thing. I do thank my lucky stars that I do live where I live, where modern agriculture has freed mankind to the point where a very small fraction of our population (around 2~3% last time I checked) can feed the entire nation with food left over to export to the less productive regions of the world. This simply would not be the case were the techniques you advocate put into practice on a wide scale. I do come from a farming family and I know of whence I speak. Like I said, feel free to engage in your romantic ideals of mankind getting back to nature practicing farming as known say a hundred years ago. In fact, I think you should go off the grid, park your cars and all your powered farming equipment, and live only on what you can grow using the techniques you advocate and your own muscle power. In fact I challenge you to do so post haste. Check back in a year and let us know how that goes. Come on, put your manual labor where you mouth is.


So does anyone in your family still farm, why aren't you a farmer?, nothing like the applied engineering of fixing your baler before it rains!
Around here the number of farms and farmers is dropping like a stone. The ones still in it are getting very big so they can hire guys to do the work so they can sit and sweat over numbers. Probably 95% of them would rather be farming like their Dad or Grandfather did but its not an option these days without having an off farm job.

If you read my posts, I don't advocate abandoning all machinery, but for reasonably sustainable agriculture, the huge tractor, huge seed bill, huge fuel bill, huge herbicide bill, huge fertillizer bill, all paid to huge multinational companies isn't the way to farm. The environment and rural society is paying the bills for the "go big" farming trend.

 

[boraticus]

If you let your lawn get that far out of control, you deserve to cut it by hand.

Actually, I've used a scythe in recent years. Great devices for cutting bullrushes underwater. Easy way to clear a water way for a boat providing it's not too deep.

 

[mjoekingz28]

Poor girl is barefoot