I've just let my lawn grow...maybe it needs more management?

Three years ago I moved into a new house and, determined to food forest it up, I have been planting trees and bushes wherever I can, letting everything else (which was formerly all lawn) grow as it wants, and just mowing a few paths here and there amid the chaos. This has seemed to work okay, but this year I am noticing the matted dead grass/weed situation is really getting quite significant and imposing. I would like to start scything (mostly for mulch) but I'm a scything newbie and it's a pretty intimidating prospect to tackle all that matted material, but it's not going to get better anytime soon. What would you all recommend? I'd reeeeally rather not get a big mower out there to raze it all down to the ground, for many reasons (and I don't even own one, just a very underpowered small electric one for the paths, and even with those it struggles.)

Would love to hear strategies. It's important to me to maintain as much habitat as possible for overwintering critters and I don't want to unnecessarily disturb that, but I think maybe scything the meadow once or twice a year would make sense....it just needs to be scythe-able to maintain that plan, not the tangled mat of craziness that it currently is. Thanks in advance for any tips or experiences!

Is the problem that you find it ugly? It will look nicer as it greens up in the spring, I think. I'd probably get a whole bunch of seeds, wildflowers or whatever, and scatter them everywhere.

One of the problem that I see when just letting the lawn grow into chaos is the weed seeds.

Maybe you could find a neighborhood boy who wants to earn money mowing lawns.

Do you own a scythe?  The best way to get over the imitation is to just get out there and try.

The problem isn't that it's unattractive—that doesn't bother me at all, and as a lazy person I would prefer to just let it go! But I think if I totally let it go it will try to revert back to the same kind of general thicket that the woods here are, lots of quick growing trees and brambles. I have tons of that kind of habitat already. I'd really like to maintain it more as a meadow, and also have it producing scythe-able tall grass that I can turn into mulch and use for compost. I'm leaning toward going in and raking out as much of the dead grass as I can, and then scything the top foot or so of new growth but leaving the grass several inches long. When is the best time if I'm going to rake out that undergrowth that won't disturb any insects? The earlier the better because I can see what I'm doing, but I don't want to disturb any late sleepers (especially fireflies, who I usually don't see until May at the earliest. But are they really in that type of grass?)

Maybe get someone with a power mower to mow part of it, with the deck set at the highest setting so it isn't mowed close to the ground? Then decide how it looks and if you want the rest mowed.
Around here if I didn't mow it would be nothing but trees in one year, and nearly impossible to clear again.

Also possible is to burn the grasses. That should help the fire-loving native meadow plants (probably milkweed and other edible ones too) and keep the area meadow. Only it might be good to make precautions it doesn’t spread.