[Kristin]

Thanks for your thoughts on prevention, David. I just took a team out on the mower for their first mowing of the season and we did a lot of starting and stopping until they relaxed. I love this team.

A question we’re still wrestling (arguing) over here at my house is whether you should bit for 99.9% of the situations or the .1% of surprises, like that old yellowjacket nest. Mark worries that in that rare surprise situation, I won’t have the physical power to get control of a spooked team without leverage. I tend to think that using too much bit on soft-mouthed horses will create more problems and dangers than it solves, and also make the work less enjoyable for everyone. But I admit that I’m the one who has had a wreck, and I also know that I don’t have the strength or ballast that Mark has and maybe there are situations when that extra strength might be the diffusing factor.

I hope I’m not beating…er… going over ground that’s already been thoroughly covered. I guess my question now is, is physical strength relevant to the choice of bit? Would you choose a different bit if you were a small woman vs a big burley man? Or, maybe: are you bitting for the horse, or the teamster?

-Kristin

[Kristin]

Here’s a question for the grazing experts. We would like to replace some of the grain we feed out to the horses with good pasture if we can. What is the best type of grass or mix of grasses for horses working pretty hard, say an average of 4 hours a day, five or six days a week? Would it be good to follow our dairy cows in the legume-heavy pastures with the horses?

Thanks,
Kristin

[Kristin]

Carl, your post reminds me that our first year, there was no way I could handle a single horse and cultivator on my own. Even with two of us working, we were running over more plants than weeds. I’d ridden horses since I was a kid, and was more comfortable on top than behind, so I got a leg up (way up) and rode while Mark steered the cultivator, and we got our rows weeded. It was a lot of fun. One of our neighbors saw us and said that when he was little, he used to ride the horse while his dad cultivated the garden. Maybe that’d be a way to get people who come from a riding background into tillage? I suppose you wouldn’t want to do it in front of a machine that could really mess you up if you fell off…

all best,
Kristin

[Kristin]

Mark is a lard evangelist. He thinks it’s the healthiest fat around. But it has to be organic, and where are you going to get that if you don’t make it yourself?

Want me to send you some?

-Kristin

[Kristin]

It was probably me talking about my spreader wreck a while back and I do blame it partly on the fact that there was nothing to brace against. Also not having the lines dropped down on a horse that needed it.

One lesson we learned with the spreader was to not overload it. Some of our fields are pretty far from the compost pile so it was tempting to pile too much heavy stuff in, which would cause a breakdown. I think we’ve finally got it into our heads that it takes longer to fix a breakdown than it does to take more, smaller loads.

The last bit of snow is melting here and I can’t wait to get out and spread compost!

-Kristin

[Kristin]

This is inspiring. I can’t wait until we’re at the point where we can start our own. Would love to hear more about how these young horses are coming along.
-Kristin

[Kristin]

We own a collection of plows, all with something wrong with them. The one we use is a borrowed walking plow. The first year, we couldn’t make it work at all, ended up hiring someone with a tractor to get our sod turned. The second and third years, Mark and I plowed together, one driving horses and the other guiding the plow. Last year, I was pregnant and Mark learned to plow by himself, but occasionally I’d go out and drive the horses for him, just because it was fun. I have a picture of us plowing together, me with a giant belly. I like seeing the soil up close and really feeling the draft it takes to turn earth. For what it’s worth, it took us a while to figure out how to adjust even the simple walking plow properly.

I guess if we were doing it over we might have allocated more budget toward a good plow at the beginning instead of fooling around with broken or inappropriate ones, but I’m glad we were forced to learn to use the walking plow.

all best,
Kristin

[Kristin]

We feed about a bale a day per horse of grass hay plus a few pounds of oats when they are working hard. We adjust the amount of oats depending on how their body condition is and how much energy they have. We have one older horse that is hard to keep weight on and he does better with pellets. Is the high fat/low carb diet you refer to, George, related to EPSM?
-Kristin

[Kristin]

Thanks John and Tevis. Tevis, which variety grew bigger for you?

-Kristin

[Kristin]

Carl, could you explain what you mean by sending energy through lead rope to get a horse to yield and back? How do you escalate the energy?
Thanks,
Kristin

[Kristin]

Just drew off the first couple gallons of syrup. It took forever because it’s been freezing rain here all day and so we’re fighting against the general damp. Last night we had a party around the evaporator with our crew, lots of good food and a little whiskey that mixed nicely with a splash of hot half-boiled sap. Farming isn’t always a lovely, fun, picturesque endeavor, but every once in a while it is.

-Kristin

[Kristin]

Thanks, Plowboy. This is why I love this site. Anyone have a picture of this type of ‘shoe’?
-Kristin

[Kristin]

Yep, sap is running. Going out to collect now and then we’re going to fire up the evaporator, which is a nice excuse for a celebration.

Carl, been thinking about what you wrote and realized that one horse thinks of ‘stand’ as a command and remains on duty, while the other thinks of it as a kind of recess. I think the little corrections remind him that he is still on the job.

-Kristin

[Kristin]

Hi Bret –
Beer and porn are hard to compete against, true enough. We are in Essex, NY, south of Plattsburgh. I’m sorry if my post was irritating. All I meant was that our members come from all income levels and types of jobs, and that while we’ve had plenty of difficulties in our five years here, marketing hasn’t been one of them.

But speaking of Northern New York, there’s a NOFA-sponsored CSA roundtable happening in Malone on Saturday, March 1. I won’t be there but Mark will, and Elizabeth Henderson is speaking. Anyone else from here going to be there?

all best,
Kristin

[Kristin]

I spent an evening arranging the ‘ag section’ of our bookshelf this week and so these are on my mind:

I second (third?) Donn and Jean’s comment on Steve Bowers. I did not know he passed away, Donn, and that makes me sad. I am currently getting three of our interns started from scratch and Farming With Horses is required reading for each of them.

The Horse in the Furrow. Don’t have it with me right now and I can’t recall the author.

The Family Cow. Great resource for micro-dairies.

Pastured Poultry Profits, by Joel Salatin. Good reference for raising broilers.

Scott Chaskey’s This Common Ground is very pretty writing about farming. Wendell Barry is ever-wise and easy on the ear, too. I like the essays more than the fiction.

Good thread, especially this time of year when there’s actually hope of getting some reading in.

all best,
Kristin

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