Rhythms & Routines of Amish Farming – part 1

by Robert C. Yoder of Morrisville, NY

Moving steadily down the field, the two mule, one mare team pulled the one bottom riding plow easily. Early spring plowing of corn stubble is an easy job – unless the staulks catch on the plow and cause a plug up. In the middle, the mare, perhaps 16.2 hands tall, Liver for her color, almost exactly like fresh cut liver. To her left, in the furrow is Jack, a red mule about 16 hands.

This is Wayne County, Ohio, where right hand plows are still a rarity. To Liver’s right on the jockey stick is the red mule who has no name, but is known as Da Glay. (Pennsylvania Dutch for the Small One). On the plow seat is a 13 year-old boy. The boy is not enthusiastic about plowing. It seems like there was no beginning and no end to plowing. This is his first spring out of school and he really wanted to continue in high school. Such was not to be. Father spent most of his time in the timber business, the boy was expected to do most of the farm work.

The field was long, the team needed rest at each end. They came to the end, turned left – sometimes – when turning away from the barn, Da Clay would refuse to turn pushing the other two off course. But this time he turns, the boy guides the team into the next furrow. He needs to stop the team to move the lever to set the plow down. The boy is fairly small, perhaps even sort of a runt, and it takes all of his effort to move the lever. They enter the other furrow, then stop to rest. The boy pulls from his coat pocket his weapon to combat boredom a book. All who would read know how difficult it is to put the book down and stop reading. Liver knows this also. After a moments in action – Liver, with the satisfied sigh, lays down. After a while, perhaps a good long while, the boy stows the book back in the coat pocket and signals the team to start again. Without much ado, Liver rises, and the team is off.

The boy was me, and I am still a reader. Now I look back and think of how much I missed, because my nose was in a book. We live on the farm of our daughter and son-in-law, and their eight children. Tim, the oldest, has become a serious bird watcher and naturalist. From him, I am slowly learning to recognize more birds. Last spring I heard a Mockingbird on our dying sugar maple in the front yard. Many different bird songs and rapid succession. The first Mockingbird I have noticed in my 72 years. Sad is it not!

Even though unrealized by myself, my growing up years were in a special era. Farming was done much as it had been. For 100 years, with the basic principles going back hundreds of years more. About every farm surrounding us, from 80 to 120 acres, had the same crop rotation. Corn, oats, a winter grain – spelt, wheat or barley. Timothy was sewn with the fall crop, then alfalfa or clover were broadcast for frost seeding in early spring. After grain thrashing and timely rains, the fall grain crop almost miraculously turned into a lush hayfield. Sounds simple, but a lot of work it was.

Most of the farms had a small herd of milk cows from, 12 to 16 head. They were milked by hand. I have good memories of cold mornings and evening evenings, my head against the cow and hands on automatic pilot as the bucket filled with foamy milk. This was a good place to practice church songs. About every herd had at least one nervous cow that would occasionally kick. Wife Rachel tells of one such cow in their herd, who was always milked by her father unless he was not home. Her father had a habit of falling asleep while milking so if one of the others milked the cow, when she would start to show signs of kicking, they would feign falling asleep then all was well.

Milk was shipped in cans cooled in water. Dairy cows respond well to gentle treatment, good therapy for this occasionally hot tempered boy. Often children were in the milking barn, with coaster wagons and trikes. Cows were used to the melee. Often at about eight years old, children started learning how to milk on an old and gentle cow. Skills learned young are lifelong skills. Few are as welcome as the knicker of horses were entering the barn. Our horses were in tie stalls and always fed first. Four draft horses and as many buggy horses as needed. The grain feeder box – connected by chute to upstairs granaries – in front of the horse horses made feeding simple. Baled hay for feed and straw for bedding in the same story.

Not so handy for feeding was the corn silage in winter for the cows. The concrete state silo was close to the cow milking and feeding area, but often the silage froze solidly to the silo walls in winter. After a long cold spell the frozen silage towered over my head. This took father’s help to get back on track. Cows were fed their corn, silage, and green, and sometimes the very best hay, in the stanchion milking area. Most of the hay was fed in the loafing shed, our term for loose housing for cattle. Cows were bedded with prodicious amounts of loose straw thrown down from the stanchions above.

All of the livestock – cows, heifers, calves, and horses – some farms kept sheep many more had hogs, provided the not so provided the not so secret ingredient for the farmlands fertility – manure. All winter, whenever conditions allowed, great steaming loads of manure were hauled out of the barn and onto the fields. All forked on shoveled or shoveled by hand, good exercise for man and horse. Thick coats needed for unloading in the cold, then rapid warm-up while loading. This is one task that can accomplished two goals at once – clean out the barn and fertilize the to be cornfields. The goal was always to thickly cover the old hayfield before plowing for corn.

As soon as enough land was covered with manure, and weather allowed, spring plowing started. All sod plowing – sod is what we call hayfields to be plowed for corn – was done with the walking plow. Three horses, a fourteen inch bottom plow, this could be pure pleasure. The only sounds trace chains, the popping of Alfalfa roots, the muted hoofbeats of horses, plowing with a walking plow could be like poetry or soothing music in action. That is, if done early enough in the season before grass or hay were growing. if done later, when grass was half a plow handle high, everything was teeth gritting harder. Often frozen mornings would put you back to manure hauling, which was needed to finish covering the field, so plowing could continue. Sod plowing in early spring could almost be leisurely. A conditioning time for men and horses for summertime.

Not so with plowing down cornstaulks for oats. Oaks like a cool, wet start, with serious hits to yield if put in late. So once sod was done, everything was down with more urgency. Weather was warmer, and a riding plow in cornstaulks did a better job. Ohio has abrupt weather changes, a sunny day can change into snow squals and a biting wind. Sometimes it felt like the coldest spot in the world was that plow seat in Wayne County. But then would come the warm days again and the field was finished. Now the spike tooth harrow, with four horses, was used – in the same direction that plowing had been done. Standing on a plank fastened on top of the harrow, balanced by the lines of the horses, this was easy work. Next step was the springtoth harrow, not as iwde because it pulled harder, and walked behind instead of stood on. Some farmers used a disc for this next step. By this time, late 1960s, early 70s, quack grass had become more rrevalent. But cutting Quack into pieces all which could grow again did. We felt a disk was the wrong tool for the job. A springtooth would bring Quackgrass to the surface, causing it to dry out, and not spread as much. Usually two passes with the springtooth, at different angles across the field would fit the field for oats. We had a thirteen hoe high-wheeled grain drill, John Deere Van Brundt, to sow small grains. Oats, that were not seeded for hay, were seeded at three bushels per acre. As the Bible says – “He who sows sparingly, reaps sparingly. If possible, could could be sown in March, but most often in April, the earlier the better. There are fe better sights, for a farmer, after a gentle rain, then to see that first greening of his oats field.

Often there is still manure to haul and plowing for the field kept back for corn silage. It was aplace for the last manure before cows went on pasture, and silo filling went better in the cool of autumn then the heat of late summer.

The main corn field was planted early May. Only in modern times was corn planted in April in our area. Care wasteken to do a thorough job of fitting for corn. If the soil was mellowafrer freezing in early plowed fields, this job was much easier. Once over withe spike tooth harrow, twice with the sringtooth was sufficient if soil was mellow. Planting corn was an exacting, but pleasant, job. All farmers found greast satisfaction in straight rows. But the snick snick of the corn planter could put a tired farmer to sleep. This could be alittle hard on straight rows.

By May 1st, pastures were lush and green, perfect for the cows to leave the barn. A sight to see were sedate old matron cows doing their pasture jig. The intensive rotational grazng we do today was still unknown to us then. Set stock grazing, letting the cows have the run of the whole pasture was the mode of the day. Some farmers had several non-contiguous pastures, thereby doing some more managed grazing.

We always waited until the corn was planted to let horses out on pastures. We were convinced they were better off being fed in the barn until heavy spring work was done.

Spraying for weeds has just started in the 1960s in our neighborhood. Neighbor Emanuel Mast, father of seven sons had, at the time, the only sprayer around with a small energetic team of spots. They did all the spraying in our neck of the woods. Light applications of fertilizer were used on corn and oats much less then was used later. Our corn was still cutivated with a one row cultivator.

So far, this sounds like all work and no play. Such was not the case. Hunting for morel mushrooms, fishing local ponds, early spring was also prime time for avid birdwatchers. Best friends Josie June, Milan’s Steve and I spent many hours on our ponies. We were all readers and often acted out adventures we read of. Sometimes we would camp overnight, and go on midnight pony rides – those rides were never as fun as they sounded like in books. This stage of life are some of my best memeories.

First cutting hay at that time was mostly used for horse and dry cow hay. This was before the era of bale wrapping, so we waited until the weather was more settled, oft times in June. Ole timers claimed the week of the 20s in June was the best time for haymaking. We had McCormick – International #9 mowers, seven foot bars. For some reason we thought we needed them to be high gear. Now’a days Trail gear – much slower – is the popular speed. Mower knives were sharpened, sometimes timing adjusted. Often just after the light rain of a cold front was the best time to start mowing. We used no conditioners – or crimpers – then first day after mowing, hay was tedded with an old kick tedder – or with a hayrake that had a tedding mode by running backwards. Horses by this time were toughened by spring work and well able to endure summer’s heat. We used pickup balers in the field, and dropped bales on the ground. Generally we had enough help to use a team and wagon to haul in bales while baling. Putting in loose hay with a hay loader pulled behind a wagon, and unloaded in the barn with harpoons and trolley system, was no longer done when I was old enough to help. Father told me I drove the horses while he distributed the hay, from the loader, on the wagon, but I cannot remember it. Haymaking could be over after a week – or stretch out many weeks, all weather dependent.

Dipping back a little in my parent’s time, my grandmother Keim was widowed in 1941, left with three young daughters, my mother the youngest, about 8 years old. Grandfather had died from heart trouble. I have a handbill from Grandmother’s auction, held in March 1943. Listed were three draft horses, two blacks and one sorrel, seven holstein dairy cows with four open heifers, three gilts – yougn sows – whith twelve shoats – partially grown piglets. Prominantly advertised are the 100 Barred hybrid pullets and 75 Leghorn pullets, an indication of how important poultry was at that time. About always on auction notices the first equipment mentioned is a grain binder, in this case a 7 foot Deering. Wheat as a cash crop and poultry as a solid income producer were about on their last legs till my time as a farmers. Other equipment down the list, a New Idea manure spreader, MCD mower, cultipacker, side rake, a riding plow, 2 walking plows and the section spring tooth harrow, among others. Harness, shovel and forks, milk cans, butter churn and #10 Delaval cream speparator. this is the type of equipmment still in use when I was lad, including a cream speparator, which I cranked many a time. A cream separator has a sound all its own, never to be forgotten.

Grandmother remarried to Eli Miller, and moved south to Farmerstown on Step-grandfather’s – to be referred to as Grandfather for a real grandfather he was – farm. Some time later, in Grandfather’s retirement they moved north to the crossroad kown as Dublin, North of Mt. Hope. As an aside, mother can remember grandmother, as a widow, getting unexpected company on a Sunday, getting a squacking pullet out of the chicken houseand then butchering it for Sunday dinner – no refrigeration needed. Anyway, on Grandfather’s ten acres he had a thriving poultry farm, on which I spent many happy childhood hours. A two story layer building built of cinder blocks, with probably at least a hundred or more chickens on each story was close to the house for handy egg gatering. These were thickly bedded with ground corn cobs and did not have the eye-watering stench of modern huge poultry buildings. Grandfather’s broiler house had two wings with the feed room in the widdle, I thought it was huge but would probably look small now. It was a proud time when I was old enough to be part of the chicken catching crew when the broilers were loaded on trucks.

Father converted part of the hay storage of the second story barn floor into a layer chicken area. I am sure this was from grandfather’s influence. A company from our county seat, Wooster, had a regular route for picking up eggs, which were paskaged by the farmersThe Rythmns and Routines of Amish Farming into cases, I think twelve, or perhaps twenty four dozen. I cannot rememer of this lasting long, as the market then was rapidly dwindling.

Most farms had an orchard. Plums, apricots, cherries, apples and peaches. I can well remember the taste of those small white peaches, as good as it gets. Large gardens – then and now – called the patch, small kitchen gardens, and flowers everywhere. Many kept several hives of bees. A grape arbor was above our heads over the sidewalk to the house. With our own eggs, milk, beef from cull dairy cows, chicken, sometimes turkey, and sausage and bacon from our own pigs, strawberries and blackerries, sweet corn and tomatoes and plenty of potatoes we ate better than kings, and did not know it.

It is time to finish this article. Today’s work awaits. We have ten 4 by 12 raised beds that are ready for spading. A drying wind has been blowing the last two days, and the sun is shining. Sprring work beckons.

This tale of our farming will continue, with the full circle of the farming year. I wish to write of our own experiences as faremrs, the changes over the years to an an all grass farm, and to retired homesteaders. Also the excitment of A2A2, grass-fed, organic milk company where five of our community’s farms ship their milk to.