The cost of dying

Scything grass

Today I decided to tackle some long grass down in the back vegetable garden area. I began with my line trimmer. It was cutting the grass OK but having trouble. The long grass would get tangled in the spinning head. The line would get wrapped around thick stems of plants and the cut grass was hard to get out of the way. The noisy motor and bits of grass flying every where made me give up using it. I dug in my workshop and brought out this old scythe. I got a sharpening stone and sharpened up the blade. I found it much more pleasant slowly working away with this old tool. I never have got to use it as well as I should, but it is not unpleasant to use. You stretch your muscles and raise a sweat, but it is not noisy with bits of grass and dust flying everywhere. I was once cutting long grass at the property we had at Apiti. My brother-in-law Bob (who just turned 80 the other day) arrived and picked up the scythe. He sharpened it, adjusted the handles and blade and started slowly, rhythmically swinging it. With each swish of the blade a cleanly cut pile of grass fell at the end of the stroke. It looked so easy.  He told me how. "Don't try to cut too much. Go with the 'grain' of the grass, see which way it is leaning. Keep the blade flat." I managed a little and got into a rhythm, but not as smoothly as he did. He was beautiful to watch. I enjoyed trying. I suppose it is a dying art? They used to cut lawns with a scythe and have them looking nice and flat. Maybe sometimes machines are not progress? It was certainly more enjoyable scything than fighting with the noisy line trimmer, even though I don't do it with the same rhythm and ease that Bob did.
Funeral Directors
With my involvement in my brother-in-law's funeral I heard that the final funeral director bill will come to somewhere between $7000 and $8000. (I was not impressed with the style of the funeral director involved.) We actually did quite a lot of stuff the funeral director would normally do. The coffin was not an expensive showy one. I think his services are not worth that much money! My Aussie brother knows of an Australian Funeral Director who only charges under $2000.  I think funeral directors rip us off! I would not like their job, but it really seems quite steep for the amount of work involved. I put at least 8 hours, most probably more like 15 hours into every funeral I do. The going rate paid to ministers is around $150 which works out to be a pretty small hourly rate. (I choose not to charge for funerals anyway)