September 9, 2016
Or – a scythe is not a hoe.
When you walk into a hardware store you see rows of different types of hammers, saws and all kinds of handy tools, each one with a different purpose.
According to Wikipedia: “Abraham Maslow said in 1966, ‘I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.’”
I used a scythe to clear hay fields as a kid. I was pretty good at it – with each swing I could cut the grass as close to the ground as I wanted. Within hours, fields that stretched across the property were cleared. These fields had been kept mowed since the days of the Revolutionary War.
I know the sharpness and danger of a scythe, so it’s hard to imagine that this could happen to anyone – but it was reported in 1860 that:
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