My Neighbors Stared. I Cut My Lawn With a Scythe Anyway.

Finally, after months of fiddling and frustration, my scythe was actually cutting something. The massive blade on this ancient mowing tool sliced through row after row of overgrown weeds with nice, easy swings. And it was quieter and worked faster than a modern-day string trimmer.

Up to this point, I’d been hacking and grunting my way around the yard. I’d heard that scything could be relaxing, even meditative, but all I’d done was curse and sweat, and then repress the mild embarrassment I felt when the neighbors stared. Who would enjoy this? Maybe struggle and self-denial were the point, and inner peace would blossom from the pain of living like a medieval peasant.

But social media videos from scything celebrities, including Slåttergubben and Scythe Dad, made it look so smooth and productive — a healthy workout, for sure, though nothing like the punishment I’d been inflicting on my back and arms. So I sank another $100 into yet another piece of gear, and I dedicated another hour to learning yet another ancient technique. And then I took one last crack at this goofy experiment.

Here was the payoff. The flow state I’d been promised was finally setting in. Then an old SUV rumbled up, and the driver called out, “Wow, a real-life grim reaper. Nice scythe, kid.” Transcendent.

My quest had been inspired by Wirecutter’s guide to string trimmers. My colleague Doug Mahoney snuck a scythe recommendation into the guide, and he called it a “beautiful, meditative tool” for those who are “constantly looking for a ‘different way,’ and don’t mind being seen as a little odd.”

I definitely got my neighbors’ attention — some stared, others pretended not to see me, and a few seemed concerned. But there were also people who struck up friendlier conversations and shared their own scything stories. The guy in the SUV told me about the one time he’d used a scythe. Another neighbor talked about watching her Central European grandfather swing a scythe around the garden — even after the Soviet Union had dissolved and lawnmowers became easier to find.

As far as actually cutting the grass? Occasionally I bludgeoned the tips off of some leaf blades, but mostly I huffed and puffed without much to show for it. A couple of times I convinced myself that I was working more efficiently due to a small adjustment I’d made to my scything stance or the angle of the blade. But that was wishful thinking.

After a few weeks, I still hadn’t gotten the hang of it, and my front yard was becoming an eyesore. I didn’t want to give the neighbors too much to talk about, so I went back to managing the yard with my mower and string trimmer.

Time away from the mower gave me a renewed appreciation for how fast and neat it is to use one. A lawn mower is louder than a scythe, but my front yard sits next to a busy state road, and the traffic is louder than most yard equipment anyway. My mower also runs on batteries, so to the extent that I care about minimizing its impact on the local environment, I’m perfectly comfortable with that setup. As for the string trimmer, meh: It’s slow and uncomfortable to hold, and it makes a mess. But it does the job where the mower can’t.

Still, I’d already spent almost $200 on the scythe setup, and at least it provided decent exercise. So I resolved not to give up entirely, and I let my backyard grow into a wild scything laboratory while I tried to figure things out.

Some successful scythers suggest that the quickest way to pick up all of the necessary skills is to attend a workshop. But I couldn’t find any within driving distance of my house. It was only after I turned to another primordial technology — printed books at a public library — that I finally figured out my problem: I’d never properly sharpened the blade.

Scythe Dad — or Sebastian Burke, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania — told me that he’d gotten into scything about a year ago, basically the same way that I did. “It started as sort of a joke with a friend,” he said. In Burke’s viral scything TikToks (filmed and posted by his wife, Lyndsey), each smooth swing of the scythe completely clears a neat semi-circle of grass, so it almost looks like it’s lying down and taking a nap.

A key difference between us is that Burke spent hundreds of dollars and put in hours of research and sweat equity over several months in order to learn how to sharpen his scythe. I, on the other hand, had tried to save a few bucks. Why buy some obscure sharpening tool — useful only for scythe blades — until I figured out whether I enjoyed scything in the first place?

But that’s not how it works. If you’re scything, you’re also sharpening. European-style blades, like the one I bought, usually need to be “peened” first. Peening is the process of hammering the business end of the blade’s malleable steel into a fine edge. So as much as I tried to hone the fresh factory edge with a whetstone (and later a bastard file), it remained hopelessly dull.

If you don’t commit to buying a full set of peening and sharpening gear on day one, or you don’t practice how to use it — essentially an entire hobby on its own — then scything is a waste of time. There’s no dabbling. You either need to go all in or stick with your lawnmower and weed whacker.

As Burke and I had to do, you’ll probably need to teach yourself every aspect of scything: stance, setup, sharpening, all of it. I eventually found great video tutorials on all of those topics. But because scything is such a niche pursuit, the advice didn’t land in my feeds with the sort of algorithmic serendipity I’d grown accustomed to with, say, gardening or DIY home improvement.

Burke said he ended up learning a lot through trial and error. He’s tried out a few snaths (handles), a half-dozen blades, and other accessories. After experimenting with different peening and honing tools and techniques for a couple of months — going so far as to check the edges under a microscope — he could finally get the blades sharp enough that scything started to feel easy.

“Once I got a feel for it, then it was like, ‘I can’t go back,’” Burke said. “It’s even starting to dictate how I garden now.” Since a scythe is so much quieter than a lawnmower, he usually cuts the grass before his family wakes up in the morning or after they go to bed.

Burke said he finds it easier to scythe the slopes of his property than to push a lawnmower up and down them. The long, neatly cut grass makes a great mulch. He’s happy that he’s not spraying spools’ worth of nylon string trimmer shards into the ecosystem every year. And then there’s the vibe: “The meditative satisfaction is really rewarding … the texture, the feel of it, the sounds — you hear birds all around you.”

I’m still chasing that bliss. Even after I bought a peening jig and hammered out the edge of the blade well enough to glide it through all of those overgrown weeds, my scythe still isn’t cutting grass very well. Should I change the angle of the blade? Do I need an even-sharper edge? I have to do more research, and there’s probably more gear that I need to buy. Did I mention I like my lawnmower?

This article was edited by Megan Beauchamp and Maxine Builder.