I have come to really enjoy using the scythe. Some people knit to relax, some drink, but I’ve found that decapitating large swathes of grass with a big razor-sharp blade is the thing for me. And while it is tiring after an hour or two, it’s not exhausting, which surprises me – but I suppose if I am mowing things properly, the tool is doing most of the work, not me.

There is hardly any water coming down our little brook into the pond, the result being that the pond is probably 1.5-2 feet lower than it should be. Over the weekend, I cut down all the weeds infesting the channel it runs down, and dug a little trench to encourage the water to go to the pond. It now does so, but at a trickle. Then again, a trickle is pretty much all that comes out of the pipe that goes under the driveway. there is a larger pipe that goes under the driveway, but the water on the other side cannot be encouraged to enter it (I’ve tried). Perhaps it is just for ‘heavy water flow’, and the smaller pipe that stuff comes through right now is just a french drain that goes under it.

The end result is, I don’t like it, since the water comes into the ditch on the other side of the driveway much faster than it comes out our side – my believe is right now, a lot of it is disappearing into the ground. I also notice the ground on the pond side of the driveway is quite soft – I’m waiting now for the driveway to slowing sink and crush the pipes that go under it. Maybe when Cabol’s dad comes to visit we can get some shovels and start diggin’ up the driveway until we hit the pipes, and put in some proper draining so the brook fills the pond and then continues on to yards unknown through the (now dry) riverbed on the other side of the pond!