Friday
Basil Scarberry’s Homemade Two-Way Plow
Mr. Scarberry had come from West Virginia to share, in the purest sense of the word, his implement ideas. His implements were not for sale, they were there for people to see, measure, ask about and enjoy. He wanted it to belong to everyone; he wanted it to be seen and known as his gift to us.
Black Breaking
He was in the round corral with the Soot Devil. The Devil didn’t have a white hair on his body, just that dusty flat black look his mustang mother had given him. The horse stood trembling on the end of the long-line, uncertainty oozing from him, reflecting the turmoil in the boy’s mind. “Whoa,” he said. “Stand easy, Devil horse.” He took a deep breath, staring at the horse, then at the ground. His throat welled up and he swallowed hard, choking the feeling back.
Center Cut Mower
The prospect of clipping pastures and cutting hay with the mower was satisfying, but I wondered how I might take advantage of a sickle mower in my primary crop of grapes. The problem is, my grape rows are about 9 feet apart, and the haymower is well over 10 feet wide. I decided to reexamine the past, as many of us do in our unconventional agricultural pursuits. I set off with the task of reversing the bar and guards to lay across the front path of the machine’s wheels.
Field Herbs
Yarrow thrives in the poorest and driest soils, as well as those that are heavy and wet. Yarrow is of great value in the Clifton Park System on account of the mass of rootage it produces, and this applies generally. It will stand fierce drought better than any other field plant. It grows up to 18 inches in height. The flowers look very like others in the daisy family except they are very small. It flowers between June and August. Its medicinal properties have been recognised since time began.
Fjordworks: The Barefoot Farmer Part 2
To be an effective trimmer of horse hooves one needs to spend a lot of time simply looking at horses. It is important not only to study their feet but to understand how the grounding action of the feet is affecting everything in the mass of body above. The adept trimmer needs to observe the horses from all angles both when they are standing at rest and while in they are in movement.
Harper on Mares
Researchers made multiple 30-minute observations weekly of each mare-foal pair noting aggressive behavior, such as head threats, bites and kicks. They also studied non-aggressive behavior, and spatial relationships. Foals were studied with their dams as sucklings and after weaning up to 6-months of age. Foals were weaned at 4 months of age.
Horse Sense for Plain Farming
Book Review – The New Horse-Powered Farm by Stephen Leslie: Working with horses is not something you can learn exclusively through watching DVD training videos and attending workshops and seminars. These things and experiences can be very useful as auxiliary aids to our training, but they cannot replace the value of a long-term relationship with a skilled mentor.
Living with Goats
It was chore time on our small, bush Alaska farm, and since the winter days are short, we use a lantern both evening (as it was now) and morning in the barn. My younger sister, Hannah, and I were working out there when this little incident happened which shows that goats truly love a good joke, especially when it falls on their owners in a poorly lighted barn.
Making Hay (by a kid from the 1920s)
“WHOA!” I shout in my 7 going on 8 voice. I pull back on the lines and the horses obey my signal and stop. Fannie and Jenny are two strong workhorses. Fannie is a bay. She is brown with black socks and black mane and tail. Jenny is a sorrel. Her coat is red and she has a blond mane and tail. In size I’m hardly more significant to them than one of the annoying flies they flick away with their tails, but they do as I command with both my voice and the leather lines I hold in my hands. It is haying time on our farm in Wisconsin. I have an important part to play in the ongoing process of producing and harvesting that makes up our daily lives.
P&O No. 2 Diamond Gang Plow
The rear end of landside on rear bottom should set 1/2 inch above bottom of furrow. If heels of landsides are too high and plows running too much on the point of shares, loosen bots in rear bail brackets and move brackets towards the rear slightly. This will lower the heel of landsides. When lowered to 1/2 inch, tighten bolts securely. Adjust stop under right hand corner of rear bail. Adjust front bail stops so front bail rests on stops and tighten all bolts.
Reconstruction by Way of the Soil Part 1
When man does not interfere and the soil is left to itself, it does not fail. Through it everything that has passed from a state of life is restored again to a state of life; nothing fails or is lost. In the philosophy of modern science, however, the seeds that life scattered upon the ground and do not fructify are stigmatized as failures, but those that grow into plants are dubbed the fittest, because they survive and expand into plants. Yet the other seeds survive no less; they re-enter cycles of life by other paths. Each has its place without which the whole is incomplete. Each has its place in a creative cycle, each passes from soil to plant and then, in many cases, to animal, and, after an interlude of death, returns to the creative realm of soil.
Reconstruction by Way of the Soil Part 3
In order to get a clear idea of the modern valuation of the soil and its effects, it is well to begin with the opposite of the unavoidable sketchiness of a trans-continental survey, such as that of the last chapter, and to concentrate upon self-contained examples on a small scale. Small islands offer themselves at once as the opposite to great continents. By nature they are self-contained. Their inhabitants get food from the sea, a source with which they are unable to interfere as they can with the soil. Sea-food, therefore, has the natural quality of wholeness. Health, therefore, should be found in such islands.
Short Stories: Reflections of a Farm Teen / The Scyther
It is very early. The sun is just peeking its head over the horizon and the fluffy clouds are glowing a pale pink. The birds are stirring overhead, stretching their wings and cooing softly to their nestlings. A sleepy rabbit hops slowly across the path and disappears into the tall grass. In the middle of the field a solitary figure stands, drinking in the fresh morning air. He holds a scythe over his right shoulder, and in his left hand is a whetstone, resting in a yellow cone. He stands motionless, watching as the golden orb of the sun shoots up above the horizon, flooding the sleepy hills with light.
Steam Tractors
This summer Eric Grutzmacher and Kema Clark from the Journal office, went to Brooks Antique Powerland for the annual Great Oregon Steam-Up. They visited the many displays and Eric took lots of pictures. On these three pages are views of three of the operating steamers. The Case, the Altman Taylor, and the Russell were models prevalent in the PNW.
The Chuck Wagon
When the first cattle drive was organized in the late 1860’s, a common farm wagon was fitted with a large wooden box that was designed to serve as the cook’s mobile kitchen, pantry and storage. The difference between a ‘covered wagon’ and a ‘chuck wagon’ is the chuck box. From the earliest of time, any wagon could have, and usually was, fitted with wooden bows and a canvas cover. As time passed and more cattle were being driven, pushed, poked and otherwise moo-o-o-ved north, the chuck wagon was refined. This is how it became what we think of and see today. Chuck wagons are still in use on ranches and for recreation.
Tunbridge Visit – NEAPFD 2010
This last fall I paid a surprise visit to the Northeast Animal Power Field Days in Tunbridge, Vermont. This event, which was started a few years back by Carl Russell and Lisa McCrory, has been held each fall at the lovely, tucked-in, Tunbridge Fairgrounds. Early on its short history, all the folks identified with the event saw it encompassing a wide spectrum of cultural aspect as pertained to farming, woods-work, and the culture of the countryside. And so the doings have expanded to include workshops, talking sessions, films, demonstrations, and trade stuff that works out in concentric circles from the notion of sharing an interest in animal power to now encompass the wider small farm community of New England.
Wild Peaches
Wild peaches and other wild tree fruit used to be much easier to locate. They were sought out and sometimes deliberately replanted in more convenient locations. A number of factors have come together to contribute to the scarcity of some of these unique wild fruits. One factor is that most people are out of touch with the seasonal availability of foragable food. Another factor is the aggressive mowing and spraying of the roadsides. Fruit that once advertised itself on the roadsides, and invited foragers to find them, are now oft mowed or sprayed away and one must seek them out without the cheerful roadside reminder.
‘Bout the Best
Chuck Baley of Pagosa Springs, Colorado, is a big, quiet man steeped in the best of the old western traditions. His skill with horses is the stuff of legends with stories coming to us from the northern plains on down into the four corners. I’m proud to call him a friend, just close enough to him to have taught a little workshop together and be privy to his personal photo albums. I snuck off with these recent photos of him, all showing his year round work training four 2 year old Suffolks to do everything willingly and quietly.