yesterday's mishap

[Donn Hewes]

I am always trying to get friends to write about mishaps and runaways as they are interesting and can be educational. Now I have to apply that to myself. Of course it is embarrassing because we care about our reputation, but I hope I have a reputation for being open and honest.

Yesterday was actually a runaway, and I think there were maybe three or more contributing causes. Fortunately, no animals were hurt (except me with a calf muscle run over that is quite sore). The only equipment broken was two check lines and the end of one driving line.

I have a large, heavy tandem disc, That works well with four or five animals abreast. Yesterday I set out to hook up five (three horses, one mule, and one donkey) to disc up an area that was plowed last winter and never planted (ugh!). Now I am hoping to disc the weeds and plant it to a winter grain this fall.

The lines that I like to use for four abreast and five abreast are different. For four abreast I use regular team lines and four check lines from hames to bit make up the rest. I have a pair of leader lines that are long enough to walk behind a harrow or the tandem disc. For a team of five I like to use a set of three horse lines (two stub lines attached to each) That way my hands reach three horses on the right and three on the left, and the rest are reached with check straps going from hames to bit. One problem is the set of three horses line that I have is regular length and not long enough to walk behind the disc.

Briefly here is what happened, I had the five hooked to an evener and then backed them up to hook to the disc. It is in travel mode which alines the discs so it will roll pretty easy. You or I couldn’t move it as it is heavy, but it does roll. I left the disc in a slightly awkward spot kind of in a ditch, (who knew it would rain so much), so I pulled the disc in a tight turn, 180 out of the ditch and back toward the barn. I have another set of single lines with me that I am planning to add on to the lines I am using as soon as I get out of the ditch and make this turn. They will allow me to walk behind the implement.

Never quite got that far. Eddie the donkey, is on the far side from me, and I believe in the tight turn he slacked off enough to get a line buckle through a hames ring. Then as he moved forward on the drive way he accelerated, and took others with him. I almost turned them into the back of the hay barn wall where they would have stopped, but being stuck on the right side of the disc it is hard to turn everything to the right enough. As it was I fell in another shallow ditch at this point and the disc ran over my calf, and I let go of the lines.

To make a long story short, my definition of a runaway is when you loose control of the animals. Once they were past the barn they made a sweeping turn for 150 feet until they piled up on a large pile of stacked lumber. two tried to go on one side and three tried to go on the other. I was there quickly as well as two other folks who where helping me. we quickly figured out no one was hurt, and while my friends headed two different groups I unhooked tangled traces and lines.

After I go out and do some chores I will finish up with how we followed up and what some of the causes were. Donn

[Donn Hewes]

Back now. I was able to walk some of the tightness out of the old calf muscle.

Immediately afterward we lead the animals back to the barn were we were able to tie them out side. It was tempting to go right back to hooking the disc and continue with the plan. My broken lines and check straps would have made that a bit of time to set up. Normally with a team of two going right back to work when ever possible is a good idea if you can safely. Four out of these five animals I would have turned right around and gone back to anything I wanted to do. Taking Eddie right back might have been a bad choice. as I was not 100 % percent certain of his reaction and I should test that in a little more controlled method. Also my leg was sore.

We chose to tie up the three mares, and hook the donkey and mule to a fore cart and wood wagon to move a couple loads of fire wood. This we did within ten minutes of our mishap and they worked fine. We then unharnessed them and hooked two mares to finish the wood pile. same result. Later that afternoon we hooked to a potato plow with Lady and Connie so all would be driven in the same day. One of the interns was driving at this point and before we plowed potatoes he said the horses seemed nervous. They didn’t seem nervous to me but it is natural for us to be looking for that. Once I took the lines, these horses worked fine although the plow was running a little deep and hard to pull.

What caused this? Before I point out some mechanical or equipment details that contributed I should say that regardless of any mechanical corrections we might make, I believe that our best defense is in situational awareness. This means our ability to identify when things are not what they should be. This can be all encompassing and includes the equipment, the animals and the teamster; is everything ready for what I am asking it to do? I believe being relaxed and alert is how we can build situational awareness. Also experience. In this case my situational awareness failed to perceive a combination of factors what about to disrupt my day.

Lines – I have for a long time corrected folks that work a ground drag implement, harrow, disc, what ever; that your lines need to be long enough to work all the way behind it so you can get from side to side. regular team lines will usually needed to be lengthened, but you can do it with rope or anything. When all is going well it seems OK to turn left and right form just one side. But have a team take a false step and now the implement is coming your way while you are trying to turn in the other direction. It is even harder to turn in your direction, because every step you take to avoid the implement is turning them the opposite way.

I know better and had the extensions in the hands of of a helper ready to put them on. Just didn’t do it soon enough.

Line buckles going through a hames ring. I know there are millions of horses driven ever day that take no precautions against this and have no problems and never will. There are also lots of near misses where this line buckle gets caught but then comes free before anything bad happens. I think it is somewhat over looked because it tends to be a problem that is more apted to befall a green teamster with a green horse. Experienced teamsters with experienced animals will not allow them to get misaligned to this extent. None the less this is a serious problem when it occurs. If it is happening to you, you should take steps to make sure it doesn’t. The simplest that I know of is placing rings under the buckle in the lines that will not fit through the hames. I think all my lines are protected in this way, except this pair of three horse lines. I will fix this on Monday.

Finally, reading the donkey is the final factor. He is not as well broke or experienced as my other workers. He is a little more unpredictable. He has worked in this hitch before, and with this disc before, but he tried to upset my apple cart once while we were hooking to the evener. Would I put him in the same situation tomorrow? After I fix my broken lines and get a few new rings, Yes. But I will be paying a great deal of attention to him as I do it.

Earlier I mentioned the moment in the afternoon where someone thought the horses were nervous. It is natural for us to think this and be on guard for it. In order for us to take them back to work, whether it is five minutes later or hours or days later, we need to be able to put it behind us. We need to provide our calm, relaxed, and alert leadership; all the while maintaining our situational awareness

[wild millers]

Thank you for thinking through and writing that out for us Donn. I appreciate your thoughts and humbleness. Having recently gone through a runaway experience (last spring), I found that the best way I was able to deal with it mentally, and keep my confidence with the team, was to write it down and talk about it with other teamsters. Find out what I was overlooking, or what I was asking of the horses that lead to the situation. We have a lot to learn from events like these because while we are always focused on safety measures for us and the horses, a runaway can really drive home the reason why we focus on safety and to remind us that things can go bad very quickly if we aren’t always paying attention to what the animals are trying to tell us.
Thankfully no one was hurt in my wreck, horses or people, just a broken evener and tongue on the forcart. I was able to re-hitch the team to a different forcart right after and go back to work for the rest of the afternoon (with pretty shaky hands at first) but I think that it has helped me to better understand the language of my animals.

[mitchmaine]

Thirty or forty years ago, you couldn’t get an old guy to show you how to run a saw or drive a team, you just did it, and they would all swap war stories about good horses and bad horses and runaways and so on. When I bought my first saw, the only advice I got was be careful. And that was that.
I think swapping yarns was there way of reminding each other that life happens, and no matter how prepared you try to be, or how long you been at it, or how great your team is, sooner or later, if you do it enough, something gives and away you go, and then its about how much you listened to those old tales if you heard enough to get away with the one at hand.
We have a tendancy, here on this website to pretend that if we know enough or have enough experience that runaways won’t happen, but that just isn’t so. Thanks donn, for reminding us to keep our heads down and ears and eyes open and try and anticipate the explosion before it starts.
Hope you are ok. A double gang of discs isn’t what I would like to see coming. I think about it upfront of the tedder sometimes . I have a bunch of good runaways, we can swap stories next time we see each other and good luck healing.

[Does’ Leap]

Donn:

I am glad you and your horses are OK and thank you for sharing. I have found run-aways to be simultaneously terrifying, educational, and extremely humbling. I set up safety measures for the check rings on my new horse that I am training and the horse I drive him with, but not for my main team for the reasons you mentioned. I will now put that on my list for all horses. Thanks for the reminder.

George

[Jim Ostergard]

Donn,
Thanks for sharing all your thoughts and observations on your mishap. Really glad to hear all is well except the sore leg.
I think Mitch is right on about sharing this with each other as it really helps keep the ideas of what to be on the look out for in front of us. My Fjord ran on me the other day. My fault as I have been able to drop the lines when unhooking a log and rolling it up onto the pile. Just didn’t pay attention to the fact that I had done that with the new guy. He was able to clear the electric fence well enough and quite gracefully in fact but the whiffle-tree didn’t and he managed to take down a good bit of it. Those yellow line holders were going off like rockets. A couple of turns around the lot and he ran up to me and stopped. We didn’t go back to work but I ground drove him after getting some fence back up and he was relaxed as we retraced he steps. I am grateful to you all for helping me understand the potential for an un-safe situation. Thanks for sharing

[KMichelle]

We had a runaway spring! With green treamsters and green horses together in the mix, you just cannot account for all the things that can go wrong, and how FAST! Especially when new people just don’t quite understand the inner workings of the horse brain. These mishaps culminated in a runaway wagon wreck that broke the back of the ‘farm wife’, though she has since experienced a miraculous recovery. It also left the horse I intended to buy, laid up with a chest abscess for weeks.

The interns left, and we recovered slowly, uneventfully and deliberately. As the only horse employee on the farm, it has left a lot for me to do! The other day while cultivating with 4 abreast, one of the green, outside horses was lagging so far behind his partner, that he continually pulled the check though his hame ring. For a moment I was content to let it go, but then got off and shortened his inside line so he couldn’t pull outside anymore. I’m glad I did it (not that I think they’re goin’ anywhere with that cultivator- no need to tempt them).

Today we started 6 on the big double gang disc, on the steep hills, quite the circus act! I’ve heard of people getting run over by those things… broken noses and such(In this case – I also heard the owner told the teamster they weren’t to run these rude horses in curb bits…).

Anyway, ugh, I don’t actually like to dwell on the topic much. I’ve had my fair share of protracted thoughtful consideration about runaways and such this year. Donn I’m glad you’re OK and I think you must know about arnica, for your calf? Applied topically in this case would be ideal.

[Carl Russell]

Thanks Donn for your openness.You are a true leader and educator.

I once had a run-away for many of the same reasons… complacency related to calm responsive horses, and lines that were in disrepair (and I knew it), but in the mouth of a needier horse were a critical failure. Also working on the ground, dragging pasture with spring-toothed harrows, with lines too short to swap sides.

I know that feeling of trying to turn away, all the time getting closer to the killer implement…. and that sinking feeling when you have nothing to do but let go…..

It is interesting also to think about the actions that we take when others are around…. I find I have to dig deeper to be as disciplined when I have interns, or helpers, or spectators. I know intellectually that I am trying to set the best example I can, but deep down I have realized that I am actually more distracted by their presence than it seems on the surface….

Your comment about the intern noticing the nervousness of the horses makes me think about what I am dealing with here after an internship. Recovering responsiveness. Kid did really well, but I could see all kinds of allowances that he made in his attempts, that now I am working to refine against.

I had a hornet nest unload on me the other day…. not on me but the horses. Rearing, pawing, stamping…. pasted on them in bunches of 5-10. Luckily they were hitched to logs they couldn’t move easily. Unluckily, they couldn’t, or refused to pull the load, so I had to unhitch, managing the lines, and trying to assure them that it wasn’t I that was maligning them like that. Once unhitched I asked them to move before I even got back on the cart, and I had the shooting fear that that was a F’ing stupid thing to do, as I was in a very unsafe and hard to control situation. I expected them to charge off down the trail dragging me running beside the cart. Luckily when I threw off the chains, one got caught on itself and one log remained attached, so they had some good drag which allowed me the time to stop them and get on. It took a good 3-400 feet to get away from the nasty creatures.

Anyway, I’m glad you are OK, and that nothing is bad enough to offset the lessons, for all of us. It is sobering. I have said many times that safety with horses is really a matter of the degree of risk you are willing to take…. to some extent.

In environmental science there is a concept called “Shifting Baselines”, where water (or air, or health) is degraded so slowly, in small increments, that we begin to accept the lesser situation as normal. My father was in munitions in WWII, and one day while instructing how to set up booby-traps he brushed his own trip-wire (Dummy loads), but he just walked off the field leaving all the cadets slack-jawed.

By sharing this you have reminded us all that we need to start each day fresh, and the more we know, the more we need to be open to more learning. This is not an art that once you cross the rudimentary thresholds, you never have to look back. We cannot allow our baselines to shift.

Thanks Donn, and be safe out there. I hope you recover soon.

Carl

[mitchmaine]

this may be an aside, but relating to our topic a bit. I have always noticed how old horses drawn equipment had the teamster behind the apparatus. mower, rakes, cultivators, harrows etc. and I don’t think it was for visability totally. in a runaway, you could just roll off the seat and maybe be ok. then came the tractor and started pulling horse drawn tools with sawed poles, until the tools were all designed to fit the rear of the tractor. so we finished the circle by building the forecart to pull all the tractor designed tools, and somehow we got left up front of the tools in the dangerzone so to speak.
the other day, I was trimming a boarder. bombproof horse I think is the term. and he is. the most laid back creature ever born. a nice horse. penny came into the barn door with an armload of corrotts or something and boom, he went sideto in a gazillionth of a second, and the hoofstant bonked me in the knee and I trimmed a slab of meat off the heel of my hand, so i’m limping and bleeding and cussing and it all was over before I knew it started. ya just never know. be careful out there

[Jeroen]

Glad you did not got hurt too bad Donn. In fact I know a lot of older men who work or worked drafts an most of them are limping… Makes you wonder.

I always devide wrecks in three categories
– your faults: your errors, material that broke, wrong choice of equipment/harness, driving errors.
– the fault of others: whatever the cause, you could do little about it (big tractors, cars that drive too fast, etc.).
– the horses fault: not well trained, off-day, etc., which in the end is most of the time a your faults.

Compared to the last two, the first one is the most easy to prevent and still there are too many accidents because of this (got my share too…).

[Donn Hewes]

Hi Jeroen, Thanks for your thoughts, I like to break my work situation into these three categories. the teamster (trained and prepared for what is being asked), the animals (same – trained and prepared). and equipment (safe and maintained). I am sure there are things like motorcycles and fire crackers; or bee’s nests!, but I try to lump them in the first three categories.

I like this approach as it keeps me focused on things I am in control of or should be. I believe these accidents are avoidable, and work everyday to practice and teach how to avoid them though preparation of those three things above. Unfortunately, I realize that saying they are avoidable is not exactly the same as saying we will never experience them again.

[Eli]

Donn glad you are ok. I’ve been lucky so far lost a line once but they stoped after about ten feet but they weren’t spooked I just noticed it was unhooked. I always read about mishaps and run aways try to avoid having my own stories. Thanks. Eli

[Author]

Posts