What did they do before ... ?

[i_am2bz]

On my wish list is a real lawn mower - good exercise and no noise!

I want one too - our gas-powered ones keep breaking down, not to mention the price of gas - but they're hard to find around here & are $$$!

 

[Javamama]

Shredded cheese. I went to grating my own one I realized I was reacting badly to the cellulose coating on the pre-shredded stuff.

 

[~gd]

On my wish list is a real lawn mower - good exercise and no noise!

I want one too - our gas-powered ones keep breaking down, not to mention the price of gas - but they're hard to find around here & are $$$!

Before mechanical mowers I beleive sheep were used along with manual labor to remove the manure, personally I like geese (taste better than mutton and the manure disappears with a good rain) Nothing looks better to me than to see a line of geese grazing on a field of green kept short and fertilized by their efforts!~gd

 

[ORChick]

On my wish list is a real lawn mower - good exercise and no noise!

I want one too - our gas-powered ones keep breaking down, not to mention the price of gas - but they're hard to find around here & are $$$!

Before mechanical mowers I beleive sheep were used along with manual labor to remove the manure, personally I like geese (taste better than mutton and the manure disappears with a good rain) Nothing looks better to me than to see a line of geese grazing on a field of green kept short and fertilized by their efforts!~gd

JRmom - We had one of the reel mowers, back in Suburbia; I agree about the exercise, but the noise was pretty loud! No gas fumes though
I like the idea of geese, or even sheep, but don't see that happening anytime soon. I've read that the great expanses of lawn around Grand English Houses (and possibly around Grand American Houses as well) was mowed using large reel mowers pulled by ponies, with their hooves covered in sacking so as not to mar the grass. That was probably in the 19th century.

 

[ORChick]

I have a wooden implement, looks kind of like a flat bottomed pestle; it hung on the wall of my mother's kitchen all my life until it came to me. I found out not all that long ago that it is called a "beetle" in Ireland (and therefore may have come from that country with my gr.-gr.-grandmother). It is a potato smasher.
"There was an old woman who lived in a lamp
She had no room to beetle her champ. (mash her potatoes)
She's up with her beetle and broke the lamp
And then she had room to beetle her champ."

For anyone interested in old kitchen equipment may I recommend a look into an old copy of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, first published 1859 in London, or one of the older editions of Fannie Farmer, if you can find them - very enlightening. There are pictures of all sorts of old things, and lists of things needed to outfit a kitchen.

 

[~gd]

I want one too - our gas-powered ones keep breaking down, not to mention the price of gas - but they're hard to find around here & are $$$!

Before mechanical mowers I beleive sheep were used along with manual labor to remove the manure, personally I like geese (taste better than mutton and the manure disappears with a good rain) Nothing looks better to me than to see a line of geese grazing on a field of green kept short and fertilized by their efforts!~gd

JRmom - We had one of the reel mowers, back in Suburbia; I agree about the exercise, but the noise was pretty loud! No gas fumes though
I like the idea of geese, or even sheep, but don't see that happening anytime soon. I've read that the great expanses of lawn around Grand English Houses (and possibly around Grand American Houses as well) was mowed using large reel mowers pulled by ponies, with their hooves covered in sacking so as not to mar the grass. That was probably in the 19th century.

The reel type mower is hard to manufacture as well as hard to sharpen and adjust to get the clipping action right. I suspect a more practical mower was the siscal (can't spell) bar type used for cutting hay behind horses when I was a lad. the cutting bar moves back and forth through guides that direct the grass and the cutting blades can be removed from the bar to be sharpened or replaced if damaged. I am not saying that you are wrong, just that the cutting bar type is more practical. It really takes a lot of fiddling around to keep a reel type mower working right and they are a bear to push or pull when they are not adjusted right.~gd

 

[patandchickens]

For anyone interested in old kitchen equipment may I recommend a look into an old copy of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, first published 1859 in London, or one of the older editions of Fannie Farmer, if you can find them - very enlightening. There are pictures of all sorts of old things, and lists of things needed to outfit a kitchen.

It's a fascinating historical/cultural document as well. Very entertaining reading if you like that sort of thing.

Also I continually marvel at the cooking times given for vegetables. Hours and hours. Hard to imagine *eating* the result. Can't imagine why that came to be common practice at the time. Very mysterious!

Sickle bar mowers are great for mowing fields but do not give nearly as tidy a result as well-made well-maintained reel mowers, hence sickle bar mowers never becoming a popular household item (as opposed to agricultural implement). Reel mowers used to be MUCH better made and better-maintained back in their heyday than now... perhaps because a) manufacturing was less quick-n-dirty and b) labor was much, much cheaper then.

Bear in mind though that the whole concept of having a lawn *to* mow is fairly recent -- having grazed grassy parkland on large estates is fairly old among the European aristocracy, and landscape architect Capability Brown made it tres trendy in the mid 1700s, but that was all on a vast scale and still maintained largely by grazing sheep/deer/cattle (and judicious scythe work).

Suburban lawns, like anything you would use a *lawnmower* for, really only sprang into existance in the late 1800s and particularly from maybe 1920 onwards.

Pat

 

[big brown horse]

There is a guy who owns his own hardware shop (not a chain) and he got my $8 reel mower (from a thrift shop) up and running very well. He charged me $10 to adjust and sharpen it.

My so called 1 acre suburban lawn is maintained by sheep in the back. I have two small front yards (rest is forest or horse pasture) that I use the push mower for. The fresh raked grass goes straight to the horses. I am encouraging the forest (too shady for gardening) to take over those grassy yards b/c I hate yard work and landscaping. If I can't eat it I don't want to maintain it.

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

I am slowly accumulating those old tools. Now that I am getting back in to canning and make so much from scratch I see how useful these things are. Like a food mill. I really needed one when I made all that apple sauce.

Now as for my mixer, until all sources of electricity are gone, I will still be using it ;D

I am with you on the mixer! But, I have a Bosch, and you can actually by a special handcrank for it, so you can still use it for breads and such. Still easier then totally by hand from what I understand.

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

There is a huge Ag museum about an hour from my parents on the outskirts of Kansas City.
It is wonderful! If only I could bring home a full supply of the various house and farm implements they have!

We have next to no access to that kind of stuff here is Alaska. The state is too new.
One item I could really make use of, is a hand crank whisk. Much better then a hand whisk, and easier then setting up either of my elecric versions.