Plow Shares

My father has always handled a plow with ease. His swinging stride a little less swinging in the awkwardness of walking down in the furrow. He is one of the few I've seen who can handle the plow while driving the team of horses with his torso. A leather strap buckles the reins together. One rein is over his left shoulder, the other comes out under his right arm. He can plow while keeping the right tension on the reins so he can steer and keep the team steady. It’s the kind of ease that comes with practice.   

Pa plowing an acre per horse per day with Dude and Rusty

Pa read that a man could plow one acre per horse per day with a hand plow. With the old team Dude and Rusty, that would be two acres in a single day. Pa will tell you that those old timers sure knew what a full days work was. He will also tell you that he didn’t quite make it to two acres, but that isn’t the way I remember the story going. Either way, Pa rose early and after a cup of tea, he sunk that single plowshare in the dirt in the wee hours. He plodded along behind the team manning the handles, furrow by furrow. He broke for a midmorning respite and a cup of tea. Pa would return to the plow until the lunch hour brought a quick break. Pa had a sandwich, a long drink of water, and another cup of tea. The team would get tied at the hitching post for some hay and water. Then it was back to the handles with the reins across his shoulders, walking along in the furrow until a mid-afternoon tea break. By sun down, two acres were done as I recall it. But I guess the results will be highly debated like all the best stories are. Stuck in memory in that constant struggle to set the facts exactly right. Is it supposed to be accurate, interesting, or maybe the best combination of the two?

Rusty, Dude, and Nellie on the sulky plow

Perhaps one of the most understated inventions in agriculture besides the plow itself was one you could sit on. As it was with the hand plow, Pa spent a great deal of time on one of those new fangled sulky plows too. Pa handles a sulky plow with the same ease as the hand plow. He can plow all day, moving along one furrow at a time. Nellie got added on as a third horse when the going was tough. Many hand make for light work. When I was little and he still smoked a pipe, he would stop the sulky plow at the end of the field and smoke. He would rest the horses with sweet, vanilla, tendrils of pipe smoke wafting around him. The only thing we were missing was the lone oak tree in the middle of the field for these respites. 

When Nellie and Ivan were the second team to take to the fields on our farmstead, Pa let me drive the team. He would sometimes let me drive on our P&O sulky plow. It was red and yellow, one of our few pieces of machinery that was painted up nice, and Pa’s long time favorite. It plowed only one furrow at a time. Sitting in the seat you are right above and slightly behind the plowshare. This is the best seat. All you hear is the soft plodding of hooves on stubble, the tinny jingle of harness, the squeak of the evener, and best of all; the ripping of roots as the plow turns over the soil right under your feet. It’s the sound of the soil whispering to you. It’s telling you that it is just as excited for this years crops as you are, that it is ready to work, and alive in the spring time air. I always think of this when I’m putting along on a tractor, that I’m never close enough to hear clearly what the soil has to say, and there’s no quiet like there is plowing with a team.

Me on the freshly painted P&O sulky plow

There are many tricks to a sulky plow. There are different settings of various levers to get it just right. The furrow needs to be deep enough, turning over the soil just so. Sometimes left over stubble accumulates and messes up the whole operation. Because of this, Pa always attached a heavy wire to the coulter. Dragging that along behind the plow plows under even the roughest of corn stubble. Many folks think all the corn stubble needs to be disked up before you plow it under, but a ten foot cable will plow under just about anything without clogging up your plow. 

Another tricky bit is the delicate balance between machine and driver. The team plods along the same way as always; one horse walking down in the furrow and one on top. If the driver is sitting level when the plow is sunk, he is then cockeyed when out of the furrow. When I was young, we plowed at a lot of shows as a demonstration for folks to watch. One of our show-going comrades decided to give the sulky plow a try. While he was well versed in handling a team, the nuances of the plow were new to him. He wasn’t accustomed to the delicate balance or what each lever did to adjust the plow. He took a seat and went on down the field. All was well until one wheel popped out of the furrow and that delicate balance was upset. The comrade was pitched into the dirt and rather embarrassed to have done so in front of a crowd. He insisted that Pa had done this on purpose. Pa hadn’t, of course. It was just the learning curve of the sulky plow and he wasn’t the first or the last fellow to be pitched into the dirt.

Most great stories that involve horses also involve wrecks or runaways, and there is almost always a human cause. We’ve been very fortunate to only have had a few of these personal wrecks, but stories they are indeed. Pa once hit a rock (one of the very few on our farm) with a sulky plow. It threw him off the seat and he got his leg stuck in the spokes of the wheel which kept rolling and left quite its mark on Pa’s leg. This story is also the testament to the value of a truly great team. Pa, on the ground with his leg stuck in the wheel said “Ho” and Nellie and Ivan stopped despite no one holding the reins. Pa's only casualty was walking with a gimp for a week or two, some nasty bruising, and a weird spot on his log from where the spokes of the wheel cut into his leg.  Not all incidents end this well, but Pa’s skill and a little bit of luck have proven handy over the years. Almost all the sulky plows in Pa’s collection, including the favorite P&O, have been wrecked by other folks.

Another story that sticks in my memory is the nine mule runaway. Pa and I were taking turns at a show that was entirely run on horsepower. I remember feeling rather proud, there on the seat. There were several other teams in the field that day. There was a team of nine mules on a three bottom gang plow, eight mules on a two bottom gang plow, and a few other teams of draft horses like ours. The ground was very dry and very hard that day. It made for tough going. While our team loyally plodded along, the mules were not impressed. At some point in the afternoon, the team of nine stopped in the middle of the field. They just would not move any further. From our vantage point, we couldn’t really see well what was going on. Then all of a sudden the mule team took off. The plow jerked out of the ground and went bumping along the ground with the bottoms still set in the down position, the driver clinging to the lines. The team went on down the furrow, made a perfect left turn, ran along the headlands through a gate and made another left turn. The best part (for me anyway) was after several guys had jumped out of the way, and a girl a few years my senior ran at the running team hollering. She managed to grab hold of the the lead two mules and they stopped. We found out later it was the mule in the center that had been caused the whole works to stop initially in the field. Some folks thought to remedy this by throwing dirt clods at the center mule to get him moving. A dirt clod ricocheted off the center mule and hit another who was startled and away all nine of them went. There is little that makes you feel so helpless as sitting there on your own seat watching all of this happen without being to help because you need to attend to your own team. Horses don’t have an off switch. But hat’s off to the young lady who was skilled and brave enough to stop a nine mule runaway.

Rueben, Roy and Valerie on the P&O

We continue to turn soil as all farmers do. Nowadays we do some with the team, some with a tractor and still more with a steam engine when we can. Our farmstead has moved along the timeline of farm technology since those years of plowing exclusively with horses, but that is a story for another time. Spring time is still plowing time. It always will be, regardless of the form of horsepower used. We prepare ourselves and the soil for the coming growing season. I love to plow with any type of technology and will jump at any chance to participate, but plowing with horses will always have my heart. I will never forget the sounds and the feeling of moving through the field with them. If you ever get the chance to see a horse farmer turn the ground with a team and hear its whisper, I hope you listen.

Horsepower

Dude and Rusty with Pa

My parent’s farmstead has been home to five or so teams of horses through the years. Pa started out with Dude and Rusty. They were nearly identical red Belgians. This trusty team was on the farm for a test drive before Pa bought them. The final decision was made when he was thrown off the seat of the sycle mower and hollered “ho!” and they did. The reins weren’t in his hands but the team stopped anyways. SOLD. Pa bought them. They are in the majority of the photos of all things happening on the farm. Pa plowed, planted, raked hay, put up hay, binded, pulled bundle wagons, hauled grain, spread manure, plowed snow, pulled out logs, and repeat. He even pulled out his share of stuck vehicles too. Pa did everything with them. They went to Civil War reenacting events where they pulled cannons, wagon loads of troops, and all sorts of cargo. This is probably why they were such a great team. You could pull them up to the barn with the manure spreader, tie off the reins, fill the spreader, and they would stand like a rock. Pa could’ve gone in for lunch and they would have still been standing there when he came back. They had cruise control and a self driving feature long before Tesla. When out on a leisurely drive you could relax the reins in one hand. At a gate, Pa got off opened the gate told them “giddy-up” and then “Ho” when they had walked though. Then he would shut the gate and get pack up in the seat. I’m sure if you had to take them to the store in town they would have been able to pick us up at the door. They worked well together and even stood in their hitching order in the pasture, Dude on the left Rusty on the right. Pa always led Rusty out of the barn first and Dude just followed along. They stood like a rock outside the barn without being tied on the hitching post while Pa put the reins on and made adjustments. Rusty was always a bit bossy, and Dude always pranced a little, but no horse is perfect. When I was little I got to sit on them while they were tied to the hitching post. Pa used to toss me high up onto their backs like I weighed no more than a small sack of apples. I remember the harness being awkward to sit on, but I felt like I was sitting on the top of the world! 

My cousin and I sitting on Dude

I was still too young to remember when my parents got Nellie (aka Whoa Nellie), but there are lots of photos of her as a yearling.  She was another red Belgian with a very, very thick white mane and tail. She got used here and there when Pa needed a third horse with the team. Many hands make for light work, or rather many horses make lighter work in this case. She later became our mama horse, giving birth to two more driving horses on the farm.

Nellie and baby Ivan

In 1994, Nellie had Ivan (aka Ivan Ho). He was a dappled cream color and the cutest thing with knobby knees and long legs. We had known she was due any day, but he was born in the pasture with all the other horses when no one was looking just the same. Ivan and his Mama, Nellie, became the second team when Dude and Rusty retired and later moved on to greener pastures. 

In 2000, Rueben was born. No catchy name related to making a horse stop this time. He was simply named like one of Pa’s favorite sandwiches, though I am not sure if that was intentional or not. I do recall being unimpressed with the name in all of my eleven years of age.  I wanted to name his Tex because his star was shaped like the state of Texas. He and Ivan were full brothers, but they looked quite a bit different. Where Ivan was light and dappled, Reuben was a darker red like his mama with the same thick, white mane and tail. When he was big enough, Reuben was hitched in with his mama and big brother, then transitioned to the third team of Ivan and Reuben. 

Unfortunately these three horses all developed odd conditions. Nellie was diagnosed with mega-esophagus; a condition which made it nearly impossible for her to swallow her food. It is more commonly seen in dogs and other smaller animals than horses. Ivan went blind, eventually deaf and began having seizers. And poor old Reuben just passed on one day and we never found out why. It is never an easy thing to say good-bye to a beloved animal before they have lived out a long and fruitful life like Dude and Rusty did. These losses were bizarre things and not easy for any of us on the farm. They were all good teams and are still missed dearly.

After losing Nellie and Ivan, Pa’s decision for our fourth team was to change breeds in hopes the new genetics would be better for us. The change to a Percheron team from Belgians wasn’t the only change Pa made. He also went from having primarily geldings to mares. We have joked that if you want to go for a leisurely ride, use geldings. If you want to get something done, use mares. For us the girls have more get up and go. Ivan and Rueben were a great team but were also slower than molasses and January. Granted there are worse problems to have, but still a bit inconvenient when looking to get a job done. 

Beauty and Valerie

So in 2008 we welcomed three Percherons to the farm. Valerie, Beauty, and Beauty’s son Roy (Registered name RJ, Grandma and I renamed him Roy which was much more fitting for us.) who was just a yearling at the time. My Grandma, always the horsewoman herself, did not want to see that baby separated from his mama so she bought him for Pa. It was a little trade-off for all those years Pa kept Grandma’s horses for her at the farm. Valerie and Beauty made up the 4th team, with Reuben used as an alternate while he was still around. Since our technologies of the farm had advanced a bit since the humble beginnings, they didn’t get used as much as previous teams, but Pa still has only ever used a team of horses to plant the barley field each year. This team also pulled the binder, plows, and other equipment around the farm as well.

Here we are today. Pa’s go-to team is now Beauty and Roy, with Valerie as the alternate. They were a dream on the grain drill this past spring and hopefully we will get out and haul some manure this fall, maybe even do some plowing.

The story here is a continuing one, I do enjoy some quality time with Pa on a rough sawn plank hauling out manure or helping him with planting and such. The teams we have had over the years have stories are so much a part of ours that I just can’t tell our story without theirs. These are the teams that I have known. At least so far. That is the thing about owning animals - you get to say “hello” just as often as you have to say “goodbye.”  And that is just it! Who knows what lucky equine critter we will get to say “hello” to next! They don’t know it yet, maybe they aren’t even born yet, but they are very very lucky!

My Mama

There is always a little mystery that surrounds our parents. Were they ever actually my age? I don’t think so, but then we know that they must have been at some point. That world is far away. We see snapshots of our folks in their younger years with other people they have lost touch with, living stories before we were part of them. And they sport hairstyles and clothes long since out of fashion. 

My Mama looks pretty much the same these days. Her hair is a little grayer, but that I think is to be expected. Maybe a few wrinkles. I know this because I’ve got those same wrinkles showing up in the same places. She is a woman of small stature with dark hair she usually wears braided or pulled back off her face in a bun. When she goes to town she wears it down, and often tucked off her face with two combs. She has a cheery, charismatic smile and has never been the fancied-up type. I can picture her exactly now. Actually, if you are reading this in the early morning or later evening hours, she is probably sitting there right now, in her vintage arm chair with the floral upholstery and wide wooden arms. A cup of tea on the arm where it's easy to grab, a book and a spiral bound notebook in her lap. She planning this year's garden, or jotting down some of her thoughts. Maybe she is taking a few notes on something else she is planning to do. Mama is a planner - the maker of lists and notes before she jumps headlong into things. Not at all like me who jumps first and asks questions later, when I am in way too deep to step back and reevaluate. 

My Mama is happy in her own skin. Something I’m glad she taught me by example. Neither of us are perfect, no one truly is, we both are content to meet ourselves where we are at. Once I saw a photograph of Ma Ingalls, and I was surprised that she wasn’t the spitting image of my own Mama. I always imagined Caroline would look just like her. They always seemed to have the same nurturing nature and ability to handle anything that came their way with grace and a cool, calculated, collectedness that was somehow warm and reassuring at the same time. Both getting a cup of hot tea for Pa when he comes from chores on a cold winter's evening, and tucking us in at night.

Always a stay at home mom, Mama created the magic of my childhood. She cared for me tirelessly in the early years when Pa put in long hours at work and doing evening farrier work after that. She corrected my homework, packed our lunches, helped at school (her cursive looks like it came out of a penmanship book, thanks to the Catholic nuns that taught her). She was the sewer of many nightgowns, holiday dresses, reenacting clothes for the whole family, and still sews most of Pa’s shirts. She manages our modest farmstead, our family gardens, and preserves the fruits of that labor. Mama butchers chickens, manages the family’s finances, and  coordinates a buying club where we purchase the food we cannot grow ourselves. On top of all that she could always somehow manage to create a feast from a wholesome variety of ingredients we kept in the house. She feeds everyone who comes through the door, including anyone Pa brings in for dinner... which is pretty much everyone who happens to be on the premises at mealtime.  It is expected that you at least join us for a cup of tea. We’ve created hordes of people who never knew they liked tea, but now drop by in hopes of having a cup.

When people ask Mama what she does, she usually fumbles a little. She can’t give you a list of educational credentials or places she’s been. There is no PHD in just making it all happen, but my Mama is the heartbeat of our family and the fire at the center of our lodge. She is the rhythm that keeps our farmstead turning as it should.

Mamas are given to us to teach us how to stumble less through our own lives. They fill our emotional and educational "tool box" with all the tools we need to survive life in the big and crazy world outside the shelter of our families. Here's how my Mama did this.

10 Things My Mama Taught Me That Totally Rock

1.) Learning to be on your own is a great skill.

 I am an only child. For me this hasn’t been a great event of getting everything I ever wanted and not ever having to share anything. It’s just a fact of my life. For example - I spent years pining over a real American Girl Doll. The girl across the street had three, and by the time Kirsten arrived at my birthday party I was almost too old for her. But I cherished her so much more than if I would have been given her right out of the starting gate. Gifts like that are supposed to earned and cherished. 

 I played on my own as a kid - in the barn, in the creek, in the woods. And when I reached school age I shared all these adventures with neighborhood kids and school friends. There was one summer I had a friend over every single day. When one day that didn’t work out, Mama told me it was good to go back to being on my own for a bit. In a way, having someone there all the time was spoiling me. Over the years there have been many times I found myself on my own for various reasons and I have always been fine. I spent a lot of time alone when I was in college. As a commuter, I never had “college friends.” I didn’t know anyone in class. I had countless projects that were supposed to be done as a group that I wound up doing by myself. In the work place, I’ve done a lot of work on my own as well. It has never bothered me. Even as the crazy extrovert that I am, I am still very much ok by myself. I am now married to a wonderful man who works long hours both on and off the farm just like my Pa did in the early years, and I am ok. Mama is right. Learning to be on your own a good skill to have in my tool box. 

2.) “Bored” is a swear word.

 When I had friends over to my televisionless house, the word “bored” usually popped out of their mouths at some point, and my family would all recoil in horror. Its just not something that was said in our house. There are books, games, crafts, the creek, the woods, all the animals, let the list ramble on! How can you possibly use that word!? There is absolutely no reason to. And if, by chance, you find yourself at a loss - Mama will make a suggestion of her own choosing. Let’s just say that I kept myself very busy.

3.) How to eat a chicken for a week.

 Mama calls this a note from her “Frugal Kitchen”. Though she wasn’t even a glimmer in her own Mama’s eye yet during the Great Depression or the rationing years of the World Wars, she would have navigated those years with the ease of an experienced general. Not much goes to waste in her farm kitchen. Meals are recycled into new ones, and little scraps of things are drawn out into delicious soups, casseroles, and much more.  Mama makes a Sunday roast chicken, then she takes off the excess meat from the bones. She might make fajitas, or a stir fry or something like that with the scraps. On a third or fourth day she boils what is left of the carcass to make a good broth. Maybe the fat can even be skimmed from the top to make biscuits (No "Chicken in a biskit" crackers here - we actually put chicken in biscuits). The broth, little chicken schnibbles, a variety of hearty vegetables from the cellar, and maybe some homemade noodles (my favorite version). Wala! There is a delicious and nourishing soup we eat for a day to two. Look at that! Somehow it got to be Saturday and we have been eating the same chicken made 5 different ways! As for the chicken, if he was a mean rooster who went after us at chore time, this is all the more savory of an event. If he was just the unlucky pick of the flock, then his life was not lived for naught. 

4.) Mama never adjusted her life to accommodate my delicate needs.

 This might sound awful at first, but honestly it is one of the very best things I think she did for me. I tagged along to everything as a kid. I was at my first funeral at around 2 weeks old, I went to a wedding at a similar age too. I also saw a movie somewhere in there too. I went to concerts, auctions, tractor shows, reenactments, homemakers meetings, reunions, historical society meetings, parties, you name it. I was there and I was expected to behave myself. Rarely was I set up with a babysitter. I never had “play dates” like so many parents are doing for their kids these days. If there were kids where Mama went, it was a fringe benefit. Not many of my parent’s friends had kids at the same time as they did either.

 All these little outings were a pretty big deal when I step back and look. It taught me that the world does not revolve around me, and while me needs are important, so are everyone else’s.  It also taught me to converse with adults and all sorts of different people. By going all these places, I met and interacted with so many different people from all walks of life that it really opened up the world for me. Even though I am not a world traveler, I have met people from so many different places and of different ages, it is almost as if I don’t need to be a world traveler to travel the world. They bring it all to me. I would have missed all this wonderful stuff if I was at home with a babysitter. Plus I doubt I will become a world traveler as much as I’d like to see some other places. One cannot simultaneously be a farmer and a world traveler, the two are simply not easily compatible. My experiences and interactions on the heels of Mama gave me the best of both worlds.

5.) If “ifs” and “ands” were pots and pans, there’d be no need for tinkers.

 Variations of this phrase was first written down in the mid-nineteenth century it seems, though I am sure it is much older. It is a gentle and optimistic reminder of how important it is to live in the present. If I were face down on my bed droning on about all thing things I could have done differently, “If only blah, blah, blah, and yada yada yada…” Mama sighs and tells me this old phrase. My paternal Grandma also uses it often. Now I find myself using it with my daughter. She stares at me blankly asking what a tinker is. The phrase now serves two purposes. A life lesson on wishful thinking, and history lesson on the trades.

6.) Let me struggle.

 Mama watched me trace out my body on top of a piece of fabric, cut it out, sew it up and wonder why it didn’t fit me. When I was flustered over why it didn’t work, she showed me why. Mama would let me struggle at first in part because A.) I never asked for help and B.) I wouldn’t listen anyway. Either way, I can now draft up a pretty sweet sewing pattern and am not half bad at draping either, despite that I have absolutely no formal training whatsoever. Lessons learned from determination and mistakes are better learned. Mama lent a few tools to the school of hard knocks.

7.) If you can make a white sauce, you can cook anything!

 This is definitely so true, and it plays a large role in Mama’s culinary genius. The first food I learned to cook was her homemade Mac and Cheese. It starts with a white sauce base. This same base is in soooo many recipes. I now use it in broccoli cheese soup, scalloped potatoes, stroganoff, and now my own version of tater tot casserole. Anything that has cream of mushroom soup in it can be faked with a white sauce, and is often way better! Find the Recipe Here!

8.) Write it down.

 Be like Mama. Put up long and short-term to-do lists on the refrigerator. Write letters to friends, and keep a short log of what goes on from year to year, day to day. It’s the best way to get out those big, big feelings. Whenever I am mad or sad, just overcome with crazy emotions of any kind, or just can’t seem to get myself straightened out, I write it down. I make lists, I write letters and somehow it becomes a lot clearer, and I am calmer.  Journaling, letters, and making lists are how I muddle though the day to day. 

9.) You do what you can with the shit on hand.

 Both Mama and Pa are dedicated to this notion, so I suppose I shouldn’t attribute it to Mama entirely. However, whenever things aren’t panning out the way I planned, or I really want something and don’t have exactly what I need to make it happen, this is a usual response. It is the anthem of making-do. Not settling exactly, but building an empire out of a stack of stones and a pile of discarded tools and lumber. It means opening the fridge and taking out everything that should be eaten before it goes bad and making a delicious meal from it. It means creating a winning hand from the cards you’ve been dealt. 

10.) Dance on the tables.

 Mama loves music. At weddings she’s usually the first one to get out there and hit the dance floor. Once she even convinced my older cousins to dance on the tables. The owner of the establishment was not impressed, but the rest of us are pretty fond of the memory. Mama always has the radio on. Sometimes she cranks up her favorite song loud enough the windows in the house rattle and the dog asks to be let out. See U2 - Rattle and Hum. We jam out. “Dance like no one is watching” isn’t just a phrase on a cheesy sign, it is an essential movement that feeds the soul. Dance on any furniture - tables not required.

Quarantine notes -

 Even though I have been juggling the idea of this writing around in my head for a while, now seemed like a good time to start. This post, more than the others, I think reflects how Mama and, by default, the farmstead has instilled in me self sufficiency and prepared me for a lifetime of whatever might be thrown at me. The social distancing, sheltering at home, and all the changes that come along with COVID-19 have been hard for everyone, myself included. However, every single one of these 10 items have been incredibly helpful to have in my toolbox for working through not only these changing times, but life in general. I find myself on my own, just me and the kids, for majority of the day. I find myself telling my daughter that “bored” is a swearword. I find myself rummaging through the fridge and the cupboard and "doing what I can with the shit on hand" so I can go to the grocery store as little as feasibly possible. I am writing letters to friends that I haven’t written to in ages, if ever, and it feels good. Such a relaxing and releasing experience. I don’t need the cream of mushroom soup that most stores are out of anyways, because I can make a white sauce. I am doing projects around the house with meager supplies, and I dance around my house with my kids because it feeds our souls. We have 9 foot ceilings here, plenty high enough to dance on table tops. Thanks Mama for the tools.