Willow Trees

I was perusing the Internet the other day looking for replacement sickles. I’d purchased one from an eBayyer once, and it just didn’t have the right feel, a nice blade, just doesn’t feel usable in ritual. Anyhow, I was chatting to a friend the other night about this, and it occurred to me (on looking at the blade again) that I could replace the handle with something of my own fashioning, and also replace the sheath with something more adequate. This would go a long way to personalising the item and maybe getting it feeling right.

So, Mrs. yibble and I took a stroll to some local felled Willow trees. We’d wondered why they were being felled and felt that perhaps we could salvage a piece for my needs. We discovered that the trees are felled and re-planted to be used in high quality cricket bats, resulting money is also used in other tree planting projects. We found an ideally shaped branch that had been spared the chipper, and rushed it back home. Where upon I fell about stripping the bark with my wood-axe. The branch is now drying in my garage until it’s fit for sawing, and I’ve saved the bark for later use.

And here’s an image of the original style sickle-like blade.