[KMichelle]

Thank you! Is it a center cut or sickle bar for single? I am pretty tap for major purchases this spring but it is always good to know what my options are!

[KMichelle]

Thanks Tevis! I actually spent today driving around with my Mom looking at the orchards up here in Peru(NY), thousands of trees and saw all kinds of spacing, of course! I am not super committed to the B9, I just wanted to get a jump on a good cider blend.

So far I am thinking the B9 will all go in their own block, that I will managed with the scythe(arrives next week!!), there are only 15 of them. I may choose to do so for the M111 too, since I have not committed to any equipment. The horses will graze the property in blocks and I will mow the gardens/orchard, pond, wetlands and dogbane.

Thanks for another good equipment pointer Jelmer! No worries about pictures, maybe they will send a catalog. In Oregon where I learned to drive, a farmer there had built several center cut mowers that were in use on a biodynamic vineyard in Washington. I think the price tag will be all about the same. Very similar to the design that Will posted.

So does anyone know of an orchard that operates with draft horses?? Visiting farms is my jam, you learn a lot.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 7 months ago by KMichelle.

[KMichelle]

Good for you! But no more diesel credit?!

[KMichelle]

That’s in my neck of the woods, but they seem under the radar. 12yo green broke?? Hmm, not to deter, just an observation.

[KMichelle]

Far from paying for anyone’s education, the United States has the HIGHEST tuition rates IN THE WORLD. We’re Number 1! It is literally tens of thousands of dollars more expensive to go to a university in the USA, then in most European countries, A YEAR.

36% of 4 year graduates work in a job that requires no degree.

Now, I graduated from high school in 2007. College was not an option, it was ‘the’ option, if you were gonna get anywhere in this world. Thankfully, I saw that for the bunk and propaganda that it truly was. I feel certain that anyone who has graduated from high school in the past 10 years, would share the sentiment that the idea of college was all but shoved down the throats of both the eager and resistant.

For example, my partner graduated in a senior class of 2,000 in dirt-poor Raleigh-Durham. From a school district now notorious for it’s ‘school to prison’ policy. His interest in language and politics got him into an English and journalism degree.

Does anyone want to guess the value of a journalism degree these days?

He has over $30,000 in school debt. Does anyone want to crunch the numbers on how long it will take to pay off that debt working in the service industry, which IS the primary employer of those with defunct or useless degrees? You’re take-home pay is between 5 and 8 an hour, in most instances…

Are there scholarships? Yes, and in many high schools, ‘guidance counselors’ are the folks who are supposed to be looking into and helping enroll people in these programs. In my partner’s school, there was 1 counselor for every 300 students…

We must always be careful not to judge other’s motives and means from our standpoint of privilege. It is always the marginalized that suffer from policies that are designed to exploit.

Furthermore, something I learned from time working with environmental and political activists, is that you cannot get too hung up on the rhetoric of a campaign. You will easily find fault and alienate yourself from the movement.

Do I farm as a public servant? **** no! I am a servant to the benefit of plants and animals, water and soil. I am a servant to my own creative whim and edible pleasures. I think becoming a ‘public servant’ is a very slippery slope, especially when the public starts to become interested in it’s servants. That being said, it is currently a powerful idea and tool that Young Farmer’s may be able to use to do some good.

All that being said, the cream rises to the top. Just because a couple of folks might get their debt forgiven, isn’t going to be a big game changer. It is just sweeping a larger problem under the rug. If people don’t have what it takes to be a farmer, they will know soon. It is not up to anyone of us to decide whether or not someone is prudent or hardworking enough, because they got scammed by higher learning institutions.

Debt is a predatory and oppressive social policy, we should all do our best to throw off the yoke of plutocratic systems.

Suggested reading –

Debt and Disorder: International Economic Instability and US Imperial Decline – MacEwan

Sacred Economics: Money, Gift and Society in the Age of Transition – Eisenstein

[KMichelle]

Howbout’ instead of waiting around for the government to ‘forgive’ our debts, we stop paying them? Stop incurring them? Stop supporting institutions and economic regimes that revolve around them… More on this later.

[KMichelle]

OK well when any one is really interested, I know where we can find a large herd of young Belgians grazing free range in eastern Oregon. Bred for working. They would go cheap, wear a halter after a fashion and probably even load on a trailer… Just sayin’…

Also, Daniel, yes… that is why my homestead is literally on a gold mine and I like mares.

[KMichelle]

Wow, it’s incredible that I had just spoken on the phone to you…

I was part of an extremely clandestine first two years of driving where I was in some wrecks, saw some wrecks, and saw horses get wrecked. Some of these were inexperience, some were equipment failures (which I now associate with inexperience), and some were just to boggle the mind.

I cannot tell you why I still think it’s a good idea to hitch up a horse and go at it. But what I do know, is that I am here for the horses, and so are you. And that you have to get back out there and drive and build confidence. And some day you will have to forgive yourself.

But that doesn’t mean you will forget what and why it happened, or that you will stop playing it over in your head.

Jay, you are here and a part of DAPNet, sharing your story so that others might think twice. That is why we are a community, so we can share the blood and glory. I guarantee you will be reborn into conservancy, a superior and wise teamster. You will continue to share this with the community and we will all be the better for it.

Lee will live on through the many hands that are brought into the ranks of the draft horse community. You are a part of that, and Lee is a part of your story.

[KMichelle]

While I have not had to deal with Lyme in my horses, I do know of people who are vaccinating their horses with canine prescription, and perhaps this would work on an acute treatment dose as well.

Also Stephen H Buhner published an excellent book on homeopathic Lyme treatments.

And while you maybe be able to ideally pursue a generic avenue for antibiotics, I know that I for one, could not replace my work horses for less then $1500.

[KMichelle]

I’ve also been on the hoof abscess wagon… I steeped plantain and coneflower leaves in epsom salts over night and then apply that in a 24 hour booty, that includes copious vet wrap and duct tape. Once the abscess burst I did one more 24 hours of salt and then a 48 hour booty with packed fresh calendula flowers(antibacterial) and then left in open air. I was able to draw it out and dry it off in a week.

But now she has one in the other foot, so I’m not sure if that’s a win/loss or draw… Sorry I can’t comment of Banixx specifically, but calendula works really well.

[KMichelle]

More of the same… I have a team on a 4 plus acre veggie operation and the horses tie in their stalls in the morning and stand until I’m ready to use them or go out around lunch. We rotate grazing with dairy cows(who they share with – they’re not fat, yet…) and sheep(who get everything first). Usually we don’t have to fuss with fencing except every 3 days or fewer for the sheep. Mostly the horses only graze at night, it’s hot and buggy enough they choose to stand in the shed. They are also mostly trained to come up every morning for their stalls. Since I am the only one who deals with the horses, other members of the crew are doing veggie things – we don’t use the horses for transplanting. Cultivation and hay work.

Additionally I worked on a farm in Oregon where they was no grazing for the horses and we fed hay all year round in a dry pen. This was a nice system.

[KMichelle]

Scythe ??

[KMichelle]

I have worked at several barns where the automatic waters had to be disconnected in some stalls because the horses found them too recreational, seems to be an individual vice. Or, like Donn said, they had not been drained before a hard frost and they burst and flooded the barn.

Tying them away from it might work. Is it possible in this setup to leave them loose, so they can’t wrap their lead? I don’t keep water in my horses tie stalls. I water them before and after work.

[KMichelle]

Who would have thought, ‘draft tack’… Thanks, ordering ASAP! These poor guys are from the west coast, not ready for black flies…

[KMichelle]

HAHA, my Bernie’s forelock is almost long enough to do the job. Unfortunately I think what gets them the most is the gnats in the ears, the past few days they have come back with bloody ears. But I think there are some patterns online I could use. Thanks

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