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Julie Clemons
ParticipantI never thought of that…I would think people have enough spring work to do without doing mine for me – ?
The field in question was mostly sand, moss and ferns 8 years ago when we bought it. soil had been bulldozed off along with stumps before we bought it. It is still pretty loose and soupy in the places where there is not much root mass yet – and the ledge is awfully close to the surface so I am loath to lose any more topsoil. All this makes me think it might not be ready to plow yet.
Speaking of spring work, is this Mitch of the famous sugaring duo (and Common Ground booth neighbors) Mitchell and Savage? Shouldn’t you be out in the sugarbush right now? 🙂
Participantthanks very much for the info!
I am in NH…Because I live an hour from Carl and Lisa I forget that folks on the board are from everywhere! Sorry!
Sounds good. Lil could use the work for sure so I will get on the disk as soon as I can. Right now we still have about six or eight inches of snow.
I can keep Lil on different areas of the property. I have some pigtail posts, temporary fence and a solar charger…an absolutely great setup for making use of those odd little corners and patches. She makes a great lawnmower.
ParticipantCarl is 21 today!
But if you are not in the neighborhood to take him out for a beer, you could always click on the “Donate” button…
Happy Birthday Carl!:D
ParticipantHere’s another one to add to the list of “Things Not to Do to a Horse.”
A perfect example of an action having an equal and opposite reaction.
ParticipantJenJudkins, don’t you also use BIOTHANE!!?? Cheater! 😉
I am 5’6″ with a 16’2 horse and a leather harness, here’s how I do it!
Hang the harness on two pegs: the top hame strap (and hames) on the top peg which is about my shoulder height. The back band, spider, and britchen hang on the lower peg which is about a foot lower. Collar goes on top.
Put collar on horse.
Stack back band, spider, and britchen on my right shoulder – as high up as I can get them, against my neck actually, so I am not holding the weight with my arm but it is resting on my shoulder.
Grab one hame in each hand, just above the tugs. Important to grab them low.
Approach the horse! Put left hame in collar groove, push right hame up and over (this is why it’s important to grab it low, so you have leverage) and get it somewhere close to the collar groove on the other side. It doesn’t have to land there or stay in, just so it stays on that side of the horse.
Now the whole rest of the harness should still be well up on your shoulder so your whole right arm is free to move, and not straining. Find the belly band with your right hand and pass that up and over, Now take the whole stack on your right shoulder and push it up onto the horse’s back. I use both hands. Somewhere in the middle is fine. Now it should all be up there and you can get those hames buckled, etc. The back band/spider/britchen should sort out easily if you have kept them neat.
It helps a lot if everyone who handles the harness does it the exact same way. It has taken me about a year to train my husband but he does it “CORRECTLY” (i.e. just like me!) now.
I am fairly strong, but not super-strong, and I also have learned (throwing pulp for Paul Birdsall in fact!) that grunting your way through a task ends up in pain that haunts you years later, long after the macho rush is gone. Learn to do it in a way that works for you! Jay Bailey and Bekah Murchison of Fair Winds Farm are no taller than me and they harness at least five horses every day. Find a way that works for your body and that you’ll be able to do, painlessly, for years. That’s sustainability!
ParticipantI was lucky enough to apprentice to Paul and Mollie Birdsall of Horsepower Farm in Maine. I planned to stay three months and ended up being there a year. If any of you are attending the Common Ground Country Fair try to catch Paul at the draft horse area and get him talking (this is not hard, it’s getting ahold of him in the first place). Mollie is no longer with us but you can go and sit on her bench near the Wednesday Spinners tent. Then come visit me at the Small Farmers’ Journal booth!!! (Lynn, Kristi and Scout Miller are also going to be at the fair this year – Lynn is speaking at 2pm on Sunday.)
Paul and Mollie were on a once in a lifetime vacation to Australia when I arrived at their farm and so I was like the new babysitter or the substitute teacher who gets tested. I got kicked on the very first day by a horse named Mayday(!) and luckily just got an impressive bruise. When Paul got back he set about teaching me, like many of you I got the “enough so you don’t kill yourself or my horses” lesson and then turned loose on various jobs that slowly increased in difficulty. Mayday and her half sister Bonnie were the designated “apprentice team” and they were as trustworthy as horses ever get.
No way really to explain what they gave me, without sounding trite. You all know. Every time someone comes to my house and is interested in the horse I try to give them a chance to at least ground drive her in the pasture, hoping I can flip the switch for them the way Paul and Mollie did for me.
ParticipantHi Carl, thanks so much for your detailed response. I tried it and it works great. She is a fast learner but a slow rememberer. It only takes 3 or 4 nudges with the stick in a given session but the next day the memory is gone, or almost gone. But I know she will get it. I think everyone (us and horses) has a habitual walking speed and it’s just getting her to adopt a new habit.
The phrase I settled on to associate with the stick nudge is “Hurry up.” She gets it, it’s not her name (which I use for other things) and it doesn’t sound like anything else I say to her.
We twitched some logs for a neighbor this morning and she is just great at it -so easy to work with in the woods – despite poking sticks, roaring saws, logs getting stuck, barking dogs, and very tight quarters. True to form she needed no hurrying when there was a big log to move – she was all business.
ParticipantShoes, schmoes. My horse don’t need no stinkin’ shoes.
But I did make a long string to thread through her coat sleeves and attach her mittens together.
ParticipantA couple of years ago I was chatting with a friend of a friend about different kinds of diets such as vegetarian, vegan, ovo-lacto and etc. and what kinds of things made what kind of environmental impact (local chicken vs. imported soy, that kind of thing). He explained very pompously that really the best thing was to be a breathatarian. “If you align your body energies right you can just live off of the air and the microbes you breathe.” I stopped dead with my mouth wide open and when I realized he was not kidding my blood began to boil (Please note we had just left a pub where we had eaten cheeseburgers and fries and had beer.) “Oh yes it’s completely real” he says. “You can live for years without food if you just, you know, have the right soul vibrations.” I think I actually bared my teeth in fury. I said “I’m sure the United Nations refugee programs and the folks who run WIC would be so glad to hear about this. You mean kids starve to death every day just because they don’t have their soul vibrations in order? You mean malnutrition is a spiritual problem? Not an economic and political one?”
It’s the closest I have ever come to actually punching someone. (I could have taken him out, too.) The willful ignorance and the gall of saying something like that on a full stomach were just unbelievable.
And yes, there really are people who believe in breathatarianism…you can google it.
ParticipantI’ve been riding Lil lately as I don’t have a lot of winter work for her. Since she is so tall it is quite a job to get up there and I have to spring rather energetically to make it all the way up into the saddle. The other day I happened to have on a pair of slick nylon pants and I sprang so energetically that I went up, over and down the other side in one smooth motion. I landed on my shoulder more or less under her feet.
She stood there a moment before turning to give me a Look. You all know the look I mean – something like “you humans make less sense every day.”
It took me a while to stop laughing but we had a good ride after that.
Participant“However, an understanding of our economic discourse requires an appreciation of one of its basic rules: men of high position are allowed, by a special act of grace, to accommodate their reasoning to the answer they need. Logic is only required in those of lesser rank.”
John Kenneth Galbraith
Essential Galbraith, p. 53
ParticipantThe book Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn might be worth looking at.
Here it is on Alibris for $18 or so, or ask at your library.
I forget how much it concentrates on the farm vs. the buildings but you might be able to glean useful information from the photos.
ParticipantExcellent, thanks for the reassurance. Erika I laughed when I read your comment because I was at a Solstice party this weekend talking to a woman who owns two riding horses (that she does not ride) and how she blankets them whenever it is below 20 degrees and shared with me her recipe for hot bran mash with carrots that she makes for them. It sounded close to what I would make for myself.
The wind blew so hard last night that it broke the lockset on our basement door and blew the door open. Jonathan had to get up and screw the door shut. And yet this morning there were tracks all over the pasture and some horse-shaped snow angels. She is just fine.:D
I have pictures but I have to figure out how to make them smaller so I can post them.
ParticipantI should have specified, I’m looking for one with blinders. I have a couple of bits already so it doesn’t need to come with one.
ParticipantHi Erika –
Check this out – a company started by one of my former students 😀
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