[near horse]

One thing that seems to be popular in plows around here (I think that means that at least 2 people have them!) are a sort of homebuilt standup plow – uses the beam, wheels and axle of an old plow and weld up a frame work w/ expanded metal flooring to stand on and rail in front so you don’t fall off – some even have a seat to lean/sit on (about as high as a shop stool).

I’ll see if I can snag a picture of one – one of my plowing buddies has one and swears by it.

[near horse]

Hey Andy –

Been there with the V-plow. Like you say – it works great in new snow, first pass but when trying to “widen” the lane it really becomes a mess with all the draft on oneside. Check out Donn Hewes’ pictures of his snow plow with “runners” to keep it tracking straight.

[near horse]

Hi Carl –

Pretty interesting story. Over at the nearby university I have occasionally seen horses with prosthetic legs – one had a foreleg and another a hind. They seem to get around alright and the prosthetics weren’t anything elaborate – the foreleg looked like a piece of pipe up to the elbow. Needless to say, the gait was sort of a pegleg walk.

Animals are truly resilient.

[near horse]

Hi Carl –

Pretty interesting story. Over at the nearby university I have occasionally seen horses with prosthetic legs – one had a foreleg and another a hind. They seem to get around alright and the prosthetics weren’t anything elaborate – the foreleg looked like a piece of pipe up to the elbow. Needless to say, the gait was sort of a pegleg walk.

Animals are truly resilient.

[near horse]

Richard – I think there’s a picture or two in the photo gallery. Check it out.

[near horse]

REPOST: I just would like your opinion(s) on this JD sulky plow I looked at today. Wheels are a little wobbly – nothing unusual. The bearing “collar” for the furrow wheel looks different (new). Also, the original handle for angling the furrow wheel looks to have been broken. The share/moldboard is an Oliver …

Anything else I’m missing (I know pictures are really difficult to evaluate).

Thanks

[near horse]

Hey Big John,

That JD model 200(?) is the plow I’ve just been looking at today. Tipsy seems to be the nature of lots of the sulky plows and it’s not too far to fall. I thought you could “angle” furrow wheel in a notch or 2 to get a bigger bite from the plow – worked for a quick response when my furrow horse decides to drift on me. Then I get him back where he needs to be and we’re good.

Do you think a new Whitehorse is a better choice than a redone oldie like these JD 200’s? If so, I’d rather spend a little more $$ and get something I won’t be battling with!!

What do you think?

[near horse]

I know. That’s the first bit of help I need to get it on my post as a thumbnail. I do know how to post into the photo gallery just not onto my own messages. Then I can show you “the plow”.

[near horse]

So one way of presenting the use of animal power in todays “terms” = “Help reduce your carbon footprint by leaving a hoofprint”. Not well thought out but a start.

Ben – I agree about using efficiency being twisted in its usage. Folks that look at how many acres you can get done in a day or an hour are looking at efficient use of TIME not necessarily ENERGY.

[near horse]

Along the lines of harness parts/style – has anyone seen a style of harness that looks like a western style but the trace chains are not part of the tugs. There’s just a hook sewn into the tug – from what I’ve heard, the advantage was supposed to be in the multiple horse hitches, you could leave the chains with the eveners, already adjusted (correct number of links dropped for each horse). Might have been something from the huge hitches used to pull the combines out here (like 26 head) – that’s alot of animals to get into formation after a lunch break. Anyway, there are a few people that still have that kind of setup around here.

Grey, you might have seen them with Rick Fredrickson’s team or Chad Boyd’s.

[near horse]

Erarly in his marriage, one of my friends and his wife liked to go camping and they often went with his in-laws. Well, it seems that they were at “primitive campground” on Labor Day weekend one year and, being that it was the last getaway for the year the campground was pretty full – even though it had no running water and just an outhouse for doing one’s business (hence the “primitive” label).

Anyway, it seems that the outhouse was placed up a short trail from the camping area and visible to all the campsites below. Well, I guess my friend’s father-in-law went to use the outhouse one night before hitting the sack and, his wife went along since she didn’t want to head up there in the middle of the night byherself. He’s in the outhouse for a few minutes when my friend (and all of the campground) hears this holler from up on the hill by the latrine –

“Honey, get it out! Take it out, now! Hurry!” – my friend recognizes the voice as that of the father-in-law.

“I’m trying. I’m trying. Stop moving so I can get ahold of it!” comes the response from his wife.

“It’s feels hairy and pretty big. Just grab it!” is his response in a high pitched voice.

“Why don’t you just take your pants all the way off. That would make this a lot easier. And you’re making this more difficult by wiggling around.”

When my friend Don and his wife look toward the outhouse (like the rest of the campground did as well), they see the silhouettes of 2 people up by the outhouse, lit up by a flashlight beam. One of them, his father-in-law, has his pants around his ankles while the other one, his mother-in-law, is kneeling in front of him and working frantically to get his pants off

Don’s thinking – “what kind of crazy exhibitionist family did I marry into?!” as he and everyone else watch his father-in-law dancing around by the outhouse.

His mother-in-law finally manages to yank off pop’s pants and throw them off to the side. So then she’s shining the flashlight on his now exposed lower half.

“Turn around. Turn around.” she tells him and so he’s up there turning half naked pirouettes under the flashlight beam, like a not-glamorous runway model, for all to see.

Finally they realize that what they’ve been doing is essentially being broadcast to the campsites below. So they start to speak more quietly and less frantic but since they’re up on a rise, their voices are still clearly audible down below.

“Are we done?”

“Yes. I feel better. I’ll get dressed.”

“Do you think anyone saw us?”

“I hope not. It would be pretty embarrassing if anyone saw us doing that!”

Come to find out, Don’s in-laws, although they did put on quite a show for folks, were not some crazy exhibitionists. His father-in-law had gotten some type of creepy crawly bug in his pants while using the latrine and didn’t notice until he was coming out of the outhouse. He’s deathly afraid of spiders and he was sure it was a spider in his pants so vanity clearly wasn’t on his mind. Just get the critter out.

Sometimes life can be pretty funny!

[near horse]

John,

Your cart looks pretty stout – nice job. With regard to the “donkey engine”, have you looked at the pictures of the one Donn Hewes put together? I don’t recall if the pictures are on this site or only at his picture site – http://www.picassa something or other – DONN – HEEELLPPPP!

I’ll see if I can get the site thing straight or maybe Donn will see this and bale me out! He has a lot of nice pics demo different things: carts, hitches etc

Donn’s a real asset (notice the ‘et on the end of that word!) 🙂

Check out his pictures. – here’s the site http://picasaweb.google.com/mulemandonn Just find the right file or look at all one million pictures!

Geoff

[near horse]

John,

Nice cart picture (and cart). Did you model it after the one Lynn Miller had in his book?

I have a steel tongue one my mower (came that way when I bought it) and it seems to be more of a bother for me than for the horses. As Joel mentioned, I hold the tongue with my leg when hooking/unhooking the neck yoke and the pole can seem a bit heavy but that might be from ther being no counterweight on the mower (my fat butt) when hitching. Bottom line is it works fine.

[near horse]

Check out this item from craigslist – not for everyone but also not very common. There are pictures with this listing. I think this is in Missouri.

Antique Combine/Thresher (Newberry)

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Date: 2010-01-20, 3:50PM EST
Reply to: sale-k28ab-1562261076@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]

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Appears to be complete. Great collectors Item. Needs a home where it can be appreciated for what it is. Hart Threshing machine. MAKE AN OFFER.!!! Email for more info. or pictures. Thanks.

Location: Newberry
it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

[near horse]

In our on-farm work with farmers we heard many anecdotes of great yields with this system, but in several side-by-side trials we failed to detect any yield increases compared to other zone-tillage or chisel plowing planting methods. That did not seem to matter though, and slot planting took on a life of its own. The story was good. It offered a solution that was acceptable to the power needs of modern farming. Like Eric said, no one wanted be a luddite. Proof? Who needs proof?

Hi Tim – I assume that another problem would be that each year is really one observation being that crop yields are measured annually. Weather can be so variable from one year to the next that it would require some years of data to reliably evaluate the effect. I’m not saying that there is or isn’t a benefit. Just that when I was at UI, we assisted with a grazing study over 2 grazing seasons – one had the wettest spring to date while the other year was incredibly dry. It really made the data messy and was likely not a long enough period to say anything of substance.

low-disturbance tillage of the topsoil,

What do you use for this? Isn’t chisel plowing considered low disturbance?

An interesting sidelight to the use or lack of green manure use in farming here on the palouse is that back in the 40’s or so, farmers planted sweet clover as part of their rotations and plowed it back in when the time was right. Some of the old timers talk about plants as high as the hood of their crawlers but they also complained about how difficult it was to plow under – balled up on the moldboards. Although they were gaining both OM and N from the clover BUT there was no income from those fields. Now they grow field peas or lentils instead. Some N fixation for sure but I think significantly lower OM provided.

As Tim said, modern farming systems are based on covering the most ground, as quickly as possible and making as few trips across the field as possible.

A few years ago we did some calculations and determined that the best we could do to raise soil organic matter with no-till cropping, returning all crop residue, and applying manure would be a 1% increase in ten years. It is no surprise that our cropland soil organic matter is 2% or less and fence row OM is 10-12%. And that is measureable, not just a good story.

Is a 1% increase over 10 yrs the best most of us can hope for as well?

[Author]

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