The horse has a sensitive digestive system

January 27, 2023 1:05 PM

Farmer, artist and writer Lynn R. Miller on working horses: "There are fewer rules to working horses and more subtleties and opportunities." A review of Miller's Art of Working Horses. "Then the seat broke and he was tossed forward under the plow, under the feet of his horses and the tongue of the plow, with one thigh up against that sharpened coulter, a steel disc meant to bite deep into sod. The horses had stopped in an instant." And another review. Archived "Ask a Teamster" [the horse driving type] columns at Small Farmers Journal, established by Miller in 1976.
posted by spamandkimchi (4 comments total)

Also well worth reading: A Horse Powered Willamette Valley Vineyard

It makes me really happy to know that my kids will grow up having a different way of approaching work. For me, there is this unshakable idea that working with horses is somehow quaint (I didn’t even know this way of farming existed seven years ago). Yet, for our children, whether or not they choose this life, it will have always existed. When you ask Daisy what she’ll do when she’s grown, she replies “teamster.” Folks always think she wants to be a union truck driver. We don’t correct them. It’s just too involved.

posted by spamandkimchi at 1:12 PM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

My experience at the SFJ auction.
posted by stet at 1:09 PM on January 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

I've just been rewatching Victorian Farm / Edwardian Farm, and one of the features is the lovely working horses. Edwardian Farm has a particularly fantastic section where a American horsetamer, following the methods of John Solomon Rarey (who I really need to do a FPP on), gently introduces a wild Dartmoor pony to humans and carrying panniers.
posted by tavella at 3:03 PM on January 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

I once got to ask either Pimintel or Patzek where mule-based farming was on their plots of energy in vs energy out in biofuel systems. The answer had two parts, because the efficiency of a farm usually relied on a second rank of specialty farms breeding the stock and they needed to account for both, but it was still more productive net than diesel.

Far less intensive, though.

Thanks for the links, it’s been really nice weekend browsing.
posted by clew at 4:27 PM on January 28, 2023 [1 favorite]