While I can appreciate the fact that as communities we are lacking the slaughtering and processing facilities that we need to have functional local food systems, I also have reservations about systems such as mobile slaughterhouses. For some, these units will allow new opportunities, but for others, those of us hard-scrabble, back-woods practitioners, it also represents the USDA finding another way to edit our food production stories.

There are many emotional issues surrounding the care and consumption of animals. Because they move, and breathe, and make noise, we can relate to all animals on a most basic level. Whether cat, or deer, chipmunk, draft horse, or milk-cow, we can empathize with their life experience. It is enjoyable to husband farm animals because we can create relationships with them which enhance our own emotional lives. The recognition of the value of these relationships to my life is what compelled me to start raising a diversity of animals on my small farm.

From time to time, someone will ask me what method I use for skidding logs. My answer is: “Whatever fits the situation”. To me it is not about skidding logs, it’s about working horses in the woods. To that end, I have spent fifteen years logging, and learning how to employ different types of equipment that augment the efficiency of working animals. I have two logging carts, a bobsled, a set of bob-wheels, a scoot, and I have twitched many logs with a single horse, as well as with a team of horses, or oxen.

Because the animals push the load with their foreheads, there are several factors that affect draft. One of the most important is that the steers need to have short thick necks so that there is less tendency for the neck to curve or sway. This is why the preferred breeds for oxen in Nova Scotia are Hereford crosses, most often Hereford x Durham. The angle of draft is controlled by a pole, or wooden tug, that is attached to the yoke with two adjustable lengths of chain. The angle with which the tug meets the yoke can be adjusted so that when the steers push into the load, the draft neither forces their heads up too high nor down too low. Like all draft animals, they need a constant angle of draft that allows them to lift the load.

Mr. Barden’s experience with the D-Ring harness reaches back over seven decades, and through thousands of acres of hay and woodland. He has worked extensively with single, double, and triple horse hitches. This video supplies valuable information, at the same time allowing the viewer to observe in action, a lifetime of knowledge about the working horse. It is specifically intended for those who understand that the value of a harness is how it functions in the field, not how it looks from the road.