It was a hot Thursday afternoon in 1954. The water was 180 degrees. I killed the fryer-size chicken and dipped it into the scalding water tank. Then I held it up to the spinning wheel of my home-made picker. I watched as my invention stripped the feathers downward until the chicken was bald. Success. One down and 249 to go. A new project on our cotton farm. One that would bring money all year.

Here abouts he was an unheralded humble, tough as nails, giant in the quiet localized worlds of cattle ranching, country ways, auctioneering and friendship maintenance. He was a true artist, genius and champion in the craft and trade of auctions. He loved them and seldom more than when he was in the deepest sweaty catch-as-catch-can center of it all. He thrilled at the chance to make it all succeed.

I first discovered “Devon Yeast Cakes” at South Molton Pannier Market, on the Women’s Institute baked goods stall. They were made for sale by a venerable old lady who had been taught to make them by her mother many years before. On the one occasion I met her before she passed away, she told me that they were standard breakfast fare on farms in the area at harvest time when she was a girl. They were made to fill up the farm workers before the start of the working day, and then again with their mid afternoon tea. Cheap and easy to make, she said some of the “boys” could almost eat their own body weight in them!

In England it’s the time of year when jams and preserves get competitive, beer and cider tents are full to bursting, old tractors are scrubbed up for showing, and new tractors and equipment seek buyers. Make no mistake: it’s an important part of the yearly cycle and as farmers show and parade some of the country’s finest livestock hoping to catch a breeder’s eye or out-do their neighbours, a commercial imperative is always present.

So let it be said right off that Maureen Ash has an eye for the substance and details that make her Holding the Lines: Horses, Hard Work, Love, and Potatoes a powerful, readable and rewarding book. It is more than an autobiography or memoir, in fact it feels most like an extended, detailed and occasionally bloody valentine to a family driven to invent themselves as farmers, and more, a valentine to the work and purpose on the windy hillside that is their farm. It is a book full of smells, textures and flavors, a convincing story of a couple making good on the dream that is their life, from how they choose each other, to how they find and build their dreams into a waking reality.

Some years ago, I sat at my friend farmer Tygh Redfield’s dining table and recorded him and his neighbor, farmer Jim Everett. It began with a low-slow-pitch question: what is a farmer? Tygh responded “Well, first, you’re not a farmer unless you are born to it.” Prepared for an intense discussion on Tygh’s premise, what Jim said next enlarged perspectives all around and shook my thinking up. As if to change the politics of the discussion he said: “A farmer is someone who fixes things.”

Your new Ford Tractor should provide long and dependable service if given a good start by you, the operator. During the first 50 hours of operation, do not work the tractor at full capacity. Run the engine at slow to medium speeds and use the lower gears wherever possible. Check the instruments frequently and keep the radiator and oil reservoirs filled to the recommended level.

A team of horses will typically skid about 3,000 board feet in a full workday. This volume consists of approximately 25 logs cut in lengths of 12 to 16 feet. The logs are dragged by draft horses hitched to a two-wheel cart. As the team begins to pull, the log raises where it’s secured by the swivel grab skidding tongs, which enables less resistance when dragging the log. It’s not uncommon to drag a log a half mile to the loading area.

The Tale of Nimble Deer Part 7

The science of anything may be taught or acquired by study; the art of it comes by practice or inspiration. The art of seeing things is not something that may be conveyed in rules and precepts; it is a matter vital in the eye and ear, yea, in the mind and soul, of which these are the organs. I have as little hope of being able to tell the reader how to see things as I would have in trying to tell him how to fall in love or to enjoy his dinner. Either he does or he does not, and that is about all there is of it.

The brain-tanned and smoked tapered leather strips were braided from the handle to the tip. Then Khoke soaked some rawhide in our pond for a couple days to soak up. Once fully reconstituted, he cut it into tapered strips too. The rawhide was braided wet and was 4-braided over the tanned leather from handle to tip. The overall length for this whip was 20ft. Khoke wanted a bullwhip that was long enough to be effective on horseback. We can all take a moment to reflect on how good a horse Millie is to put up with that.

Time slips on, it could be twenty five years ago; we met a friend in the supermarket in Newry. We knew she had retired from school teaching but what we didn’t know was that she had married and was living in rural County Cavan, some eighty miles away. In conversation she mentioned what I took to be an ancient festival in her parish; a hill field with a prehistoric stone and the oldest horse fair in the land. I must say I’d never heard of it, nor had anyone I knew.

Since the beginning, the equipment development process of the European non-profit association Schaff mat Päerd has been based on retro-innovation. This approach consists of reviving and reintroducing old or outdated ideas, technologies, or designs in a modern context. It involves taking inspiration from the past and combining it with current advancements to create something new and innovative. It is a dynamic approach to innovation that celebrates the past while embracing the future.

A much improved walking potato digger is shown in Fig. 491. The shovel is a large rounded scoop which slides under the potatoes scooping the soil and the potatoes up onto the shaker grate at the rear. The grate is hinged at the front. A five-pointed wheel under the grate gives it an up-and-down motion which sifts the soil from the potatoes as they pass over the rods. A forecarriage to control the depth of the shovel is fastened to the front of the beam in front of the shovel.

My husband and I have been through numerous production models in the swine industry. Our latest move from Minnesota to Tennessee essentially transitioned our swine operation from completely contained confinement buildings to outdoor free range. We gave up concrete, climate control and automatic feeding for mud, chasing pigs through timber and more mud. The new plan has definitely down-sized the herd from hundreds of sows to two and has seen cedar posts and wire panels replace farrowing crates and manure pits.

It turns out that the Stuhr Museum in Grand Island, Nebraska, has a full size Milwaukee No. 5 chain drive mower. So I recently had a friend, who is also a professional photographer, take pictures that clearly show the details of my chain drive mechanism. The Stuhr people sent me pictures of their mower. I can tell that their machine is quite a bit newer than mine because they have the attached toolbox and the holder for the oil can. The lid of the toolbox says “MILWAUKEE HARVESTER, CO. MILWAUKEE, WIS.” And on the frame, “No 5.”

The importance of cleaning grain before marketing and the cleaning and grading of seed before planting is being recognized by grain growers more and more every year. The selection of good seed is a very essential step in the production of any crop. Certified seed breeders practice cleaning and grading of the seed they plant and sell.

Some kids stay with the farm until they are old and bitter and wish for “a better life.” Maybe they should have left. Some of them quit early, leave right away and sell the farm when their parents pass. Maybe they should have stayed. Others live in the trenches of those feelings and those wonderings until it all crushes them. Who can say which path is right for a person: the paved road out or the washboard dirt road back in?

Mike McIntosh invited us to join them at a threshing reenactment at Smith Rocks Ranch, so Eric and I went to Terrebonne. The result was a lot of perfect pictures so we share a few with you in this issue. The equipment and horses demonstrated all belong to the McIntosh clan. Mike, Joanna, plus Jamsey, Jacob and their wives (and children) were joined by Clay and Brett. Threshing is a regular occurrence for the family so everyone knows their part to perfection. Jamsey was mechanicing and running the JD belt-drive tractor to power the Case thresher. Jacob ran the JD binder and the ladies drove the bundle rack team. Mike, Clay and Brett kept the thresher going smooth and at the right speed.