After weeks of rain, the sun is finally out. The air is washed clean, sharpened by wren trill and robin song. Each chiff and chaff passes like a whetstone, honing the edges of hedges until every leaflet and catkin stands out, sharply etched in the fresh spring light.
The meandering lanes that snake through the Blackdown Hills gurgle with runoff. The steep, mossy banks are spangled with yellows of varied intensity, from soft pastel primroses to brash celandine, and the new leaves of cleavers, nettles and dog’s mercury.
We arrive at Mower Meadow, home to the Somerset Scythe School run by the champion scyther Andi Rickard. We are here to celebrate International Peening Day, and to learn how to peen our scythes, ready for the new season ahead. Peening is the traditional technique of hammering, thinning and tapering the blade such that it becomes both sharper and stronger.
My friend and I have brought six of the community scythe blades belonging to our local environmental group, Transition Town Wellington. With meadows aplenty to maintain along our town’s new green corridor, we need them all in tiptop condition. This grass isn’t going to cut itself, you know.
Andi has set up peening jigs on one side of her field, plus freehand anvils for more experienced peeners in the barn opposite. Peening using an anvil requires the person to steady the blade themselves, while using a jig is faster and takes out more of the risk. “Idiot-proof peening” is how Andi describes it (not a phrase to instil confidence in a peening virgin such as myself). However, undaunted and in the spirit of learning by doing, I set up my blade on a jig and begin.
Each tink of the hammer on the jig draws the metal down, leaving a bright silver line in its wake. The blade moves along a millimetre at a time, and the blows take on an easy rhythm. High above us, a fork-tailed kite jinks and keens; woodpigeons coo; the chiffchaffs are still sawing away in the hedgerows. The four of us working together unconsciously syncopate and synchronise our hammering, becoming – just for a moment – the perfect percussion section for this lush springtime orchestra.
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