[sickle hocks]

Nice to see a Permie using draft animals! I aspire to that combination but am not quite there with either…

Plus one for the coppice wood, and once it’s established it could be valuable browse for the oxen and other critters.

If you ever map this out, I’d really enjoy seeing what the layout looks like.

( i think it’s possible to combine functions with hugelkulture beds that function as swales, but you’re probably onto that…) cheers

[sickle hocks]

Your berm sounds quite similar in function to what I have learned to call a swale.

Here’s an animation of swales so you can see what I mean..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFeylOa_S4c
…the size of it seems exaggerated in the video

Here’s a video of a series of swales constructed on contour by draft horse on an Amish farm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD0ibQCqhmQ

sorry about the cheesy tunes..

i think this looks like a great way to retain water in your soil and slow run-off, i’d really like to try this technique out, maybe this fall…

[sickle hocks]

Thanks for your thoughts, Andy. You’re right, it’s all pretty site-specific isn’t it? Definitely no additional summer fallows this season, I’m swamped.

I think I can afford to leave this patch out of production for another season, so I’m leaning towards just mowing it and hoping it fills in nice with clover for next summer. That will give me fewer acres to deal with next year which would probably be smart. I might try potatoes in rows of straw mulch on part of it.

I’m almost tempted to let the oats set seed, and turn the cattle in to pick it over and trample seed in a bit later in the fall, but that might nuke the clover in the process.

[sickle hocks]

I have seen photos in a British workhorse book of a little one-horse wooden rake with handles that you walk behind. There is also a picture of one from Norway in one of the Lynn Miller books. I don’t know what they are called. It doesn’t seem to be part of the american tradition, but maybe if you look into some European sources you could find some examples to work from. That’s not very helpful, perhaps someone here knows more. I often thought it would be a handy little thing for small scale haying.

[sickle hocks]

A super late start to today and only halfway through coffee, so that took me a minute…but ThankS! for the row marking tip, that’s a great idea. I am embarrassed to have not thought of it already. Next year…

I was ready to throw my earthway seeder ‘in the bush’ this spring. I was planting a lot of odd sized bean varieties..and wanting a very wide spacing as there’s not enough moisture here to grow them close. Just growing out some heirloom seed this year, and it’s too precious to be thinning. Trying to modify plates for metering wasn’t great, and the rest of the planter functions also leave something to be desired. Have you ever seen or used the Hoss row seeder, it’s supposed to be a copy of the old planet junior. I just wondered if it would be better.

Good luck with the rain. I managed to hit our first rain just right and things came nicely. Another one coming in a few days so I will be out seeding too. Sometimes the rain doesn’t come here. The old timer’s have a saying ‘Plant in the dust, and your granaries will bust” …..I have no idea what the source of their optimism was.

[sickle hocks]

Be careful she doesn’t snag a line on the end of the pole. I would also like to hear strategies for managing horses that are ‘busy’ in harness, especially individuals in a team.

[sickle hocks]

The straight razor would be the really extreme spanish spade bits…used properly, they can be feather light and delicate…there is a signal built into the bit that comes into effect long before the bit acts, and the horse is moving off just the signal. So in away, the most severe bit is at the same time using the least amount of force. Of course it took seven years to progress a horse up to the bridle….and riding students had the reins attached to the bit with bits of thread to keep their hands light… Of course they would be entirely inappropriate to driving.

I just looked through the Dr. Cook site and I’d be open minded about trying one as another tool. There is, not surprisingly, some heavy anti-bit sentiment in there, and I tend to be skeptical of any ‘ultimate’ solutions….in a horse world so driven by fads and marketing these days. But I would like to try one. Have you found that you can keep your horse light, or make it lighter, using one?

I think it comes down to being able to recognize what is or isn’t working for each individual horse, and really working on developing good hands, which is going to be a lifetime project…

[sickle hocks]

I wish the internet community weren’t spread so far and wide, we would all come for a huge barn raising and dance this summer. I hope you have one anyway, and tell us about it. I am so glad no one in your family was hurt. I can imagine how terrible hard it is to lose the things, but you still have what’s most important. Good luck with whatever path you choose now.

[sickle hocks]

FWIW I don’t think I’d make that big a change in the program until I had a bunch of steady post-runaway drives under her belt again. Then maybe…if there was a good reason. The unattended lines you can watch for, but the spook part could happen again anytime, and I would want her to feel me there the way she is used to it so she knows I’m there when she’s scared.
But I’ll defer to any of the teamsters here, I don’t know driving.
How is the tongue healing? Good luck..
I don’t know about the rope halter thing…maybe with an awfully honest horse…I have used a bosal some on green colts but I find it demands the rider really be on top of the game…I’m just not there yet, but hopefully someday because it’s a beautiful thing when it’s done right.

[sickle hocks]

Looks just like a sheep wagon, nice camper…maybe a horsedrawn version someday?
(i bet the other poster was thinking of steel tube cattle panels, i think of the welded wire ones as hog panels…it would almost be nice to have a thread on this construction method, i’m starting to make sheep and chicken shelters and just making it up as i go along..)

[sickle hocks]

I can vouch for the Highlands, mine are rough on bush. It’s a nuisance because I like my native woodland so there are a lot of areas I need to exclude them from…maybe a fast graze every other year or something. A plus for the highlands is they protect themselves from predators.

[sickle hocks]

That sounds about right, Andy. I am most interested in the row cultivator, hiller, and potato plow functions, and that’s what I will be starting out with. I already have a disc and I can tow harrows with the forecart.

I would like to see an an angle adjustment on their disc harrow so you could set it up to throw dirt either in to the center or out to the sides. Looking through Miller’s ‘Horsedrawn tillage tools’ there is a wonderful variety of sweeps and scufflers and it would sure be nice if they came up with a few more options, maybe even a rotary hoe….For a guy like you it might be a good platform for experimental DIY rigs that you could make to fit…

I suspect that as a regular plow it will be a compromise implement, and not as efficient as a dedicated sulky plow. The wheel spacing has some lateral adjustment, and I think this is to allow it to follow the furrow in plow mode. Plowing really isn’t a part of my program right now…I may order that attachment and try it some year down the road, and I think for the very little plowing I plan on doing it might get it done just fine and be a good compromise. If I had a lot to do I would look for a sulky plow.

[sickle hocks]

I think the video shows the second generation cultivator attachment…most of the photos around show a cultivator with fixed shanks, but after talking with them I’m under the impression that they are now building it with shanks you can remove or slide a little bit to adjust spacings, or accomodate different row crop sizes a bit.

I actually have one on it’s way this spring, so maybe I can take some pics of it or answer some questions for you later. I felt a bit foolish dropping that kind of cash and getting a new implement, as I’ve been trying to scrounge. The reality is my part of the world seems to have been in big fields of grain, even back in the day. There just aren’t many if any, row cultivators kicking around the fencerows here. And without mains electricity for a welder or much of a shop to work in, it’s tough for me to efficiently repair something or fabricate pieces if it’s in rough shape to start with.

I’m gonna have to grow and sell some quantity of stuff to pay for the homesteader, but i’m hoping it will serve for a long time.

[sickle hocks]

I just picked up 8 pullets and a young rooster in March. They have the run of the place right now. They are a lot of fun to have around. There are a lot of hawks and coyotes around, but there seems to be a bit of a bubble right around my cabin that is safe-ish, lots of activity and scent, and the dog wandering around.

I think I am going to spend some money on electric mesh (as much for predator protection as anything) for a portable sheep / chicken paddock where they can free range on rotation. I will have a portable shelter but I will not spend money trying to predator proof it, and hope the fence is effective, and hope my llamma helps out. (I’ve seen her keep one coyote off the sheep so far). Or maybe it will be a moveable feast…

The eggs sell themselves, and have me thinking I should get four times as many birds. Sell tasty stewing chickens to the well-informed when their time is up. I am growing some hulless grains this year so I should be able to provide for a lot of their feed. Our egg laying drops off a lot in the winter with the short photoperiod at this lattitude…so keeping a bunch of hens overwinter may cut into the bottom line but I wonder if there isn’t potential…? I have barred rocks and am really hoping that at least one of them will get broody, if not this summer then next.

ps. anyone know of any automatic doors set up to run off a little solar panel / battery?

[sickle hocks]

I’m experimenting with a ‘community nest box’..it’s google-able….a long narrow box with a small entrance in the center, hen’s can go right or left and find a place to lay. One of the advantages is supposed to be reduced egg eating as it is particularly dark towards the ends where they go. You can even hang a cover over the door to keep it darker. So far so good.

I remember my folks use to get wooden ‘dummy’ eggs from the hatchery and leave them out…the idea being the chickens would eventually learn there was no reward for pecking at eggs. Not sure if it was effective.

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