The Big Man

by Brandt Ainsworth of Franklinville, NY

He was used to winning. Coming out ahead of the pack in competition came easily to the big man. He graduated high school as valedictorian at only 16 years old. After 61 years, his athletic achievements are still unbeaten in his former high school. His long ash baseball bat was hitting home runs for town baseball teams at an age when most athletes have long since given up on sports. Stories of his long range shooting, (offhand), and shot gunning from the hip are told and retold. In the post WWII era, everyone wanted to have a big farm, he owned the biggest around. The highest dairy herd average, then the biggest laying hen operation, along with the biggest crop yield, was achieved before he donned a tie, and was the best salesman in the company, first in farm equipment, then real estate. In the late 60s and early 70s he was at all the right night spots spending the most money, and the most beautiful ladies were always on his arm, or often on each arm. Never beaten in arm wrestling, and he was known to lift an enormous anvil higher than anyone. Quite simply, he was used to making things into a competition and winning.

The life he led next was not a competition in any sense. He was however, still winning.

Life on the 120 acre sheep farm was a long and quiet grind. Its rewards weren’t monetary, or material. It had been a decade since the days of buying a new European sports car, and a new four wheel drive pickup in the same year. The Saab has been dead, and parked behind the barn for a few years now. The once shiny red pickup is rusted, dented, and will soon be beyond repair. The big purchase in the late 80s was now a Pioneer sulky plow for $500. The hippies might call this going back to the land. The big man, now a married family man again, was too busy being in charge of his family and farm to have a poetic name for the life he was winning.

I’d give a lot to turn back 25 years, and see the 6’2”, 260 lb figure standing on top of a side hill in his faded Carhartt coat, 10” size 15 work boots – pant legs tucked into the top, with the Mossberg rifle he never left home without, slung over his shoulder, as he looked over his flock of sheep, his crops, his woodlot, his horses, and his boy. This was his daily place to stand,(on snowshoes in the winter) for a while, as he planned his farm, reflected, and appreciated all he had. Quite often the battered, but accurate Mossberg came to his shoulder, and he downed a predator that threatened his stock. Always at his heels, waiting for a command, was his invaluable Border collie. At the crack of the rifle, the dog threw dirt as he took off to get in on the kill of whatever was plaguing his sheep.

A great team of horses is one of those things most people never see at its best. The same is true of a truly great sheepdog. Ahab wasn’t just a good dog he was great. He commanded every sheep with the authority of a general. He drove 40 weanling lambs effortlessly, a mile and a half as the road winds, to new pastures. He kept the whole flock in a 40 acre field without a fence around it for nearly a month one autumn. When steers went wild, or cows got out, people called from miles around for Ahab’s help. After seeing the big Border collie work during shearing time, men who had been shearing sheep for 60 plus years were misty eyed with appreciation as they petted old Ahab. As the legendary old dog aged beyond his working years, it was clear his younger replacement pup, Oliver, was nearly as good as the veteran. The big man was still winning at all he tried.

The first horses to power the farm were a pair of dapple grays. Their bloodlines were “grade”, to say the least: Percheron on the top side, Quarter Horse on the bottom, if they actually had papers. These fast stepping mares had style, and it turned out later, substance. The horses, harnesses, evener, and neck yoke were bought for $1000, after the older, cagier mare took the bit in her teeth and ran off when two different men tried to break her. The two and three year old, more spoiled than broke, mares came home on Labor Day, and by October, they were, as the mule men say, “readin’ and writin’”. Their first work was to haul the winter’s firewood. As long as they were in the woods, the big man used the new team to skid a couple loads of Ash logs that needed thinned out. After the log trucks left, it was back to firewood, hauling manure, and as winter set in hauling hay to the sheep daily. “Nothing like work, to make a good team of horses,” said the big man, expanding his winning.

“There’s nothing like work,” and the horses got worked, the dog got worked, the boy got worked. The big man was, as always, tireless; tireless in both actions, and ideas. The mares plowed new fields. They dragged, they planted, they cultivated, they pulled the binders, (both corn and grain), hauled sleds, wagons, logs, and people. The more they worked, the more they knew. Their muscles were always hard, and their dapples shone in the sun. They loved winter best of all. After the hay was off the sled, it was a full gallop back to the barn, or up and down the snow covered road if the boy felt like it. It was like chuck wagon races on ice and snow. Know nothing, fear nothing; with a ten year old boy on the lines.

It’s a shame so few people ever see a great team of horses; the kind that you can hang the lines on the hames and back a spreader and cart around a 90 degree corner and into the barn. Not just to show off for company, this was done every day.

Like the sheepdogs, the next great team was already being broke. This team was even better than the first. This team would run the farm for the next 24 years. They were great on the farm, and great in the woods. A great sheepdog, followed by another, then a great team of horses followed by another; that shows you where the greatness really lies: in the hands of the big man.

Greatness lied in running a farm for the big man. Farming wasn’t a competition, but if it was he would gather trophies for building fence, laying out perfect lands for plowing, plowing perfect furrows, backing wagons into narrow barns, felling trees perfectly, most bushels of oats per acre, innovative ideas with crops and livestock, biggest loads of hay, oats, and corn on a wagon, and of course, best trained horses and dogs.

As it should be, the big man did none of this for trophies, or to win a competition. He did it for peace of mind, and for his belief that this is the right way to raise a family.