[Uncle Joe]

Wish he had hay to bale the day I visited and made the show but he had none that day. I don’t know if Dris visits this site, but if you ask him about his baler on the Front Porch he will tell you about it. Here is a link to a front porch thread that has a 2009 post of his at the bottom where he tells who made his baler conversion and gives a phone number.

https://www.ruralheritage.com/messageboard/frontporch/7542.htm

Joe Mischka
Rural Heritage

[Uncle Joe]

I would be certainly interested in seeing photos and a write-up of the operation. Anyone who might like to tackle that for Rural Heritage magazine should contact me at editor@ruralheritage.com or call toll free 1-877-647-2452. Putting together a film would be a lot more work and harder to market, I am afraid. We are severely limited in the type of video we can show on RFD-TV these days. Cameras have to shoot Pro HD quality to be accepted by the network now. If someone could provide that kind of footage, we would love to use it on our program, but it is a professional-grade camera that is required.

Here is a photo of a couple of work horses, each put to a separate capstan, leveraging a house down a house in 1908 San Francisco that we published in a book in the 1990s called Working Horses that has since gone out of print. Don’t know if this is the photo you were thinking of or not, Geoff.

Joe

[Uncle Joe]

Yes, it was a 22-minute excerpt from Les’s excellent 40-minute video on the D-Ring harness. The entire program is available on DVD through Rural Heritage.

Joe

[Uncle Joe]

Yes, we will have the DVD early next week to ship. We will be charging $29 for the DVD which will cover the cost of manufacture and shipping and leave a little to send to Les to help compensate him for what he spent producing the video originally. It is not a commercial project, we are just glad to be able to help get Les’s message out. He is a great guy with high standards and a wealth of knowledge and experience. The pamphlet currently being produced won’t be available, as Carl said, until sometime this fall. But if someone wants to order the DVD now, I can send the pamphlet (which will provide additional measuring, fitting and hooking instructions) when it is complete.

Joe Mischka
Rural Heritage
publisher@ruralheritage.com

[Uncle Joe]

Hi Piper. A few potential operations can be found on Rural Heritage Magazine’s Good Farming Apprenticeship Network: https://www.ruralheritage.com/apprenticeship/index.htm.

We will be publishing in our January issue our updated annual listing of folks who offer apprenticeships in draft animal farming and logging as well as sustainable, self-sufficient, and organic market gardening operations. At that time, the list on the website will also be updated to reflect the latest information.

The GFAN helps connect people like you with potential apprenticeships.

For anyone wishing to have their operation included in the listing, visit: https://www.ruralheritage.com/apprenticeship/internform.htm.

Joe Mischka
Rural Heritage

[Uncle Joe]

Thanks Bivol. I look forward to it. And to your contribution, too, ixy.

Joe

[Uncle Joe]

What a great conversation. So much to agree with here. We have had fewer articles about oxen, particularly practical how-to articles, since we bought the magazine three years ago. And we want to change that. I attended the Midwest Ox Drovers Assoc gathering this summer to try to meet experienced and enthusiastic people working with oxen so I could cultivate more articles and article ideas. I need help here; my background is working with draft horses. We hope to begin remedying this scarcity of oxen content soon. In fact the latest issue has a little more oxen content than usual, but still not enough.

We pay for stories we publish: usually 15¢ per published word. We pay for photos we print: usually $15 per photo. It is not a lot, but it helps defray the costs of running down the story, and it is in line with most of our competition.

My email is editor@ruralheritage.com. My phone number is 319-362-3027. I would be pleased to discuss any article ideas with a potential contributor. We are a small shop and rely on outside contributions to provide content. Right now I am budgeting to take a trip to NEAPFD in the fall of 2011. Wish I could go this fall but it is not in the budget.

Thanks to all for your interest and desire to see improved oxen content in Rural Heritage. We are working to make that happen and look forward to receiving your help toward that end.

Joe Mischka
Editor and Publisher
Rural Heritage Magazine

[Uncle Joe]

Carl, Thanks for reading the article and providing your appraisal. The feedback is appreciated.

Joe Mischka
Rural Heritage

[Uncle Joe]

Carl: Your issue is on its way. Thanks.

Geoff: I am very interested in such a series. I am always trying to cultivate new contributors and would warmly welcome submissions that discussed safety, proficiency and efficiency issues as they relate to any of a myriad of topics including but not limited to: harnessing, driving, stable and pasture management, logging, farming, training, trailering, etc. People with the knowledge rarely take the time to put it down on paper. I am grateful for those that do and am always glad to find new ones. But, I need contributors to spend time with those who aren’t interested in recording it themselves and make a detailed record of their methods and techniques. If you or anyone else is interested, please contact me. My contact information is available on our website, in the magazine and at the end of this post.

Imagine, spending a day or two with a mentor-level teamster, learning their methods and techniques, recording their advice and cautions — and being paid to share it with the public at large. While some experts are understandably close-to-the-vest with their expertise, (if only to prevent having their practices in the open where they can be criticized) many others are delighted to have their knowledge passed on accurately. A lot of expert information is transmitted this way, through an intermediary writer. The trick comes in accurately representing the expert’s meaning and intent. The resulting piece would need to be crafted carefully and include back-and-forth feedback between the expert, contributor and editor/publisher to ensure it correctly portrays the expert’s intended message.

Joe Mischka
publisher@ruralheritage.com
Rural Heritage
PO Box 2067
Cedar Rapids IA 52406
319-362-3027

[Uncle Joe]

Thank you Donn. Your letter (and perhaps Dave’s response if he is inclined to provide one) will appear in the May/June issue of the magazine. I appreciate your careful examination of the piece and thoughtful review of its points. Thanks again for the feedback and for supporting the magazine as one of its readers.

Joe Mischka
Rural Heritage

[Uncle Joe]

Carl:

Did you see the story and photos? The horse was tied to a hitching post, a point that is clear in the photos and discussed in detail in the article.

When you write “If you do hook it into the neck yoke and walk off, and the horse isn’t ready, then you’ve left the animal in a situation where a whole lot more can go wrong,” I wonder what is this thing you call “the underlying truth” in your statement.

Are you suggesting that horses must always have someone heading them up? That whenever a horse gets itself in trouble, it’s because it wasn’t “ready” to be put in the particular situation–indicating an error on the teamster’s part? And that once it is “ready” for a particular procedure or practice, it will always proceed without mishap? Or do they regress in their training and become “not ready” again?

I am convinced this horse learned to behave better while being hitched as a result of this incident. The preparation Dave took in training the horse prior to this session, and his method of hooking at a hitching rail ensured the mishap could not get out of hand. The horse steps over the pole, tries to go around the hitching post, and falls down where it stays until Dave helps it get up. The horse learned to stand when being hooked.

So when you write “The problem was not that the horse actually moved, but that he was left in an unsafe situation that led to more than it needed to” you are making an evaluation of Dave’s training techniques which I believe to be unfair. Furthermore you suggest I was irresponsible in including the incident in the magazine, that it “tends to make it seem alright,” or that we were negligent in not giving a “back-story” to provide some kind of context, all of which makes me wonder if you actually read the story or looked at the photos.

Finally, since the story and photos ran in my magazine, which has several thousand subscribers who — by your and other’s accounts — have been misled or misinformed, perhaps dangerously, it would be appropriate to write a letter to the editor of the magazine to be published in an upcoming issue where these points can be made to these misled readers and perhaps debated by the original author.

As I said earlier, I appreciate the feedback this forum provides but I do not regret running the story or photos, believing the package to be accurate, useful and in the best interest of our readers. All the same, I welcome letters to the editor that may make an argument to the contrary.

Joe Mischka
Rural Heritage

[Uncle Joe]

Jerry: Shoot us an email, letter or phone call and we will send you a sample copy.

Joe Mischka
Rural Heritage
publisher@ruralheritage.com
PO Box 2067
Cedar Rapids IA 52406
(319) 362-3027

[Uncle Joe]

As always, I appreciate the feedback.

Joe Mischka
Rural Heritage

[Uncle Joe]

Dave’s series on starting a team of young horses began about two years ago and has had an installment in nearly every issue. In the caption for the photos showing the horse that had fallen, Dave wrote: “This is what it looked like a few minutes before the photo on the previous page was taken.” (The previous page photo shows the team standing quietly hooked to the wagon). “I had hooked Doc up to the neck yoke and was heading over to get Babe. Doc, not knowing this behavior was not allowed during hitching, decided to take a little walk. In doing so, he got himself into and out of a bad situation. Once he was standing again, I put him back where he was, and he stayed. I have included this little incident to point out that in the process of starting draft animals, unexpected stuff happens. Though it looks serious and it is sometimes exciting, it usually works out. In this case, the horse learned to be still while being hitched.”

I would argue that the fact that the horse remained basically calm through most of the incident covered in the photos, and was successfully hooked with its teammate a few minutes later for its first drive put to a rolling vehicle, Dave’s preparatory work WAS fruitful in that the outcome WAS a success.

Whether the stories have made it a long drawn out series, I guess I would leave that to the reader. I do know we have had a lot of positive comments on the series and have heard people say they appreciate the time Dave takes to tell his story and the room we give it in the magazine.

Breaking horses is not a simple or predictable process. It requires paying attention to safety and part of that is anticipating what might go wrong. I think the story and photos showed one of the things that might go wrong and how Dave’s method actually prevented a serious accident from developing.

At least that was our intent in running the story and photos.

Joe Mischka
Editor, Rural Heritage

[Uncle Joe]

@Karl Louis 10725 wrote:

Looking back through the the archives at the other site it seems it was once a busy place. Quite a bit of information. The guy seems to just want another venue. If some of what he says is true in his view, I’d want another option too.

I posted, or I should say I tried posting at RH, but none of my posts were accepted. Too controversial I guess. I never should have mentioned having a “partner”, set off all the homophobic alarm bells. So even though I’m certain I come from a different place than nohandle/Bret, I’m also familiar with what he’s talking about at RH at least. Fair is fair and I hope they make a go of it. Different strokes for different folks.

Karl: I don’t recall ever rejecting any posts at RH from you or anyone else because of partner-orientation. I can only guess it was before my wife and I bought the magazine and site in December 2007. Charges of homophobia are invalid with the current management, I assure you.

As far as censorship goes, all anyone has to do is go through the posts and they can see for themselves what is allowed.

In fact, we get a lot of complaints from people that too many posts stray from the primary focus of draft animal power and self-sufficient living, but a lot of other folk argue (I think successfully) that politics and culture are an important part of their rural lifestyle.

With the exception of contributions made by one particular poster who was unable to make his point without using inappropriate language or descending into personal attacks, there have probably been fewer than a half dozen posts that have been rejected.

I’m not really interested in responding to the charges made by this one person as it may lend credibility to those claims. Again, all I would do is ask people to visit the forum for themselves and see what is being discussed.

Joe Mischka
Rural Heritage Magazine

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