Mule & Donkey & Potato Farmer in Sebastopol CA

Hi Everyone –

I am relatively new to the world of draft animals and probably too far west to be of any use. I have a mule and a donkey. The donkey is trained to drive and the mule is in training. Yours truly is doing the training after digesting as much as I can of Lynn Miller’s & Doc Hammill’s work along with a few others. I have been driving the donkey for about 2 years. I’ve owned the mule longer; since 2006 and he was born in 2003 out of a Peruvian Paso. His name is Marshall Cash and he is more settled now and I am a lot more patient. We are doing things in very small chunks. I am working him with a single tree for farm work and also with a false shaft set up for training so I can use him on a buckboard spring wagon. We are coming along very well considering my level of experience.

I am also a part time potato farmer and grow about one to one and a half acres of potatoes every year. I don’t have a tractor, but we get some tractor work done for field prep each year thanks to my Mom’s cousin who has a mowing business. The rest is all handwork and rototillers. I used the donkey for putting in some furrows and cultivation, but it is pretty limited so far.

For the past 2 years I have been lusting after the French tool the Kassine, but as a few here can attest – that endeavor is pretty much a dead end. At one point, I finally ended up with a price list and a translation from a guy in Sweden. I got a shipping quote and figured would I be into it for between $4K and $5K by the time it was in my hands. The drawings are near impossible to get. I tried to get them and I was using people in France to help me get them. No deal.

Then I hooked up with the drafting dept supervisor where I work and we tackled it from that end using graphics, pictures and whatever to get it on AUTO-CAD. Then she backed out and the guy who told me he would build it died.

Many, many (I mean many) other events transpired in my attempts to get a Kassine or build one from the time I started until now. The events described above are just a couple of hi-lights.

Finally I met Ann Siri and Mike Holmberg at the Not-So-Simple Living Fair in Booneville CA last summer and after an afternoon of me jabbering they decided to take it on.

So Ann designed and built a tool that has some similar features, but she made it stronger, lighter and added some clever features and I should be getting mine sometime this late spring or early summer. She is supposed to be taking it to the Small Farmers Journal Auction on Oregon next month for a demonstration. I want to go too, but I will be too busy with stuff going on at the farm and my full time job.

Anyway – I am very aware that I have a lot to learn and I know that my donkey and mule will be very happy if I keep learning more. I have two local friends who are experienced drivers and one has done his fair share of training and I will be having them over to critique my training well before we attempt any adventures outside of the round pen.

If you want to check out our potato farm – check out http://www.blankityblank.biz Thanks and glad to finally be on this forum. Denny from Sebastopol CA