Early Spring Amish Style

Spring in Amish country is a picture of hope and new life.

Winter is a time for endurance. Livestock hide inside the barn waiting for the snow to melt and uncover fresh green pastures.

At the first hint of warmer weather, Amish families prune their fruit trees and plant seedlings inside or under a glass-protected sprouting box. The young women pictured above are working together to cut excess limbs from their apple trees. This process keeps the trees from growing too tall. Shorter trees are easier to gather all the apples out of and pruning actually increases fruit production. Many apple trees in town are left unpruned and even the small amount of fruit they produce is left to rot on the limbs. 

Not much is ever waisted on an Amish farm.

If you look closely at the photo above, you will see chickens coming out of the coup in the center. Many large egg producers keep their hens inside. On an Amish farm, they are free to roam the yard and peck insects and spilled grain from under the storage bins and around feed bunks used by larger animals. In this way, even spilled or undigested grain is given an opportunity to be useful, and not wasted. Every evening the chicken are shut inside to keep them safe from foxes and opossums.

Amish people walk a lot. It is a big job to hitch up a horse, unlike turning a key in a car inside a heated garage. If the destination is not more than a mile, walking is an easier choice, and good for a person. As you can see, these young women have a distance to the nearest possible destination. 

They gave a friendly wave as I passed.

No point in offering a ride, they wouldn't take one unless they know you well.

Spring brings rainy days. Many Amish in our area cover open carts with clear plastic. This holds in a little heat and keeps the snow and rain off your lap. A light two-wheeled cart, such as this one by the stop sign, is much easier for a horse to pull. This means your horse can travel faster than in a covered top-buggy.

As the grass grows greener, cattle, horses, and sheep give birth to new life. Good farmers use animal husbandry practices to encourage calves, foals, and lambs to begin their life after snow melts and pastures green-up.

Horses, sheep, and cattle ofter share a pasture. Sunny days warm the soil and "green up" the grass. Trees begin to bud. Cloudy days water the earth and lightning adds nitrogen to the soil.

Creation is designed to reproduce life.

Notice the church wagon in the photo above. The wagon is drawn by horses from farm to farm bringing church benches, songbooks, and tableware for a Sunday gathering, or weddings and funerals. 

Each spring brings new life.

 

Family Horse

Every child needs to have at least one great horse in their life! Our family has had a number of great horses and ponies over the years.

We have two wonderful horses at the time, Karma and Coke. They are getting older and at the point where they are perfect for children to be around. It's too hard to imagine what life would be like without them.

As you can see, they are very much loved! Our grandchildren love to come out to the farm whenever they get a chance. If Grandpa is still delivering mail they start asking Grandma, "When will Grandpa get home... we want to see the horses!"

Karm and Coke know what is coming when the children come into the barn. Our grandchildren love to pour oats into the feed bunk and then give them handfuls of hay. They love to brush the horses and sit on their backs. Our oldest granddaughter tries to braid their manes.

 We had Isaac over by himself one afternoon and he climbed onto the wagon seat and said, "I wanna go for a ride!" He knew what he wanted and didn't give up until Grandpa hitched up the team.

My wife and I had our four oldest grandchildren over for a field day before school started back up.

Shari (my wife) asked if we could take the children on a wagon ride. I had the wild idea that maybe we should have a picnic lunch with the horses first.

Karm and Coke ate hay while the children had a sack lunch. I harnessed up the team right after taking this photo.

 We stopped under our big shade tree after every round we made.

While the horses rested in the shade our grandchildren traded places. Each of the four got a chance to take a round riding up front with grandpa on the wagon seat.

Little Leo Thomas was too small to go along, so grandpa made sure to give him an opportunity to play with a toy horse. His day is coming!

Fall in Soybean Country

 Iowa farm fields are mostly covered with cornstalks, but soybeans are a close second! Many farmers, my brother-in-law included, rotate those two crops 50/50 because that is best for the soil. This farmland you see beyond my horses has been in our family for 97 years, and will be a "century farm" in 2018.

 When my wife's grandparents moved here, everyone in this area was still farming with horses, Amish or otherwise. Soybeans didn't become a cash crop until many years later. Back in those days farmers rotated corn with hay and oats. All of the field edges and rough areas were used as pasture in the summer, and cornstalks for winter grazing.

 I was laying on the ground to capture the photo you see above. My wife looked out of the kitchen window and, for a moment, wondered if I had been kicked by one of my horses.

That wouldn't be impossible, but these horses are about as gentle as can be. I trust them completely.

I added a photo of horses grazing near cornstalks on an Amish farm. This is a typical fall view in our part of the country as well.

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Step Back in Time

 Amish children walking home from school

near Hazleton, Iowa

 We stopped in the Hazleton Amish community today.  As usual, when I get into an Amish area, I stop in the first gas station and ask the attendant, "What direction do all the Amish live?"  They normally point, "Over that way" and off I go.  Every now and then, they hand me a brochure giving directions to help find Amish stores.  The Hazleton Commercial Club put out a fantastic map of this area, complete with dots showing all known Amish farms in the area and numbered business locations. As we arrived at #4 Plainview Country Store, we saw this man hauling manure. (The store is in the background) He and his horses didn't seem to notice that their field was mostly under water.

 This picture was taken in the parking lot of Plainview Country Store, a dry goods store with a variety of interesting items.  I bought some Maple Creme Nut Clusters, I'm eating one right now and they are crazy good! We enjoyed watching some little Amish children teetering around in the yard but I didn't get a picture of them.  I liked how the wash-line headed up over the buggies.  A teenage girl came out and started reeling in the dry clothes shortly after I took this picture. Her clothes line is on a pulley system between the house and the barn. She stood on the edge of the porch and gathered everything in from that one spot.

This picture was taken near another interesting store, not on the map, named 150 Discount.  Easy to find because it is just off of Hwy 150 on 150th St.  A really nice young couple run this place and I recommend it as another great variety shop.  Step back in time and visit an Amish community today!

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My Changing Background

I am sharing a string of photos taken from within 50 feet of each other, to make a point.

Our lives often feel like we are stuck in a rut, same places, same views, everyday.  But if we take time to notice, we will realize that God is changing our backdrop constantly!

Especially here in the mid-west we find that our plain, wide-open spaces are changing daily.

Make sure to take time and drink in the beauty that surrounds you everyday!

Okay, I will admit having a pair of beautiful horses gives scenery a huge advantage. This morning when I fed my mares, I told them, "Per dollar, you girls were the best money I ever spent!"

Horsepower in 2014

 The world has changed a lot in the past one-hundred years! In 1914 almost every farm in America was powered by horses, not tractors. At first glance these monster tractors look like a vast improvement over farming with horses, but are they?

Let's stop and go over the pro's and con's:
Tractors... one man can farm hundreds of acres alone. Horses... more people needed but that means more people with jobs.
Tractors... although they use expensive fuel, they don't need to be fed when not working. Horses... they have to be fed everyday but they can raise their own renewable, environmentally safe fuel.
Tractors... don't get sick and die. Horses... can reproduce their own replacements.
Tractors... don't have personality flaws. Horses... actually have a personality, many that you can fall in love with.
Tractors... will make you more dollars (True, that modern farmers spend more money on luxury items but almost all of them are strapped with a debt load their huge tractors can't pull them out of.)  Horses... will save you more dollars (Most Amish who farm with horses operate with zero debt.)
In the end, it is obvious that tractors are more convenient and make it possible to raise more food with less labor. If you ever visit an Amish farm, where they are using good old-fashion horsepower, you will find that with our "convenience" we have lost a lot of what makes life rich and meaningful.
What if, instead of one man farming a thousand acres alone, there were eight families working that same land. And those eight families helped each other daily in a close knit community. Welcome to the world of the Amish.

Does this fascinate you? Check out my novel, Under the Heavens, it will give you a chance to feel what it is like to spend a summer on one of these farms.

                 http://www.tinyurl.com/underheavens

Horses in the Cold

 Horses seem impervious to the cold but it makes me miserable to observe it. My own horses have a good place to get inside if they choose to. As you can see in the picture below, my horses usually stay outside until I feed them in the barn. Today, when the sub-zero wind chills kicked in, I found Coke and Karm inside.



They seem to love the snow but not the wind! When I come in to feed them and they have snow all over their backs, I'm thinking, "why not get under a roof?"
But, it's their choice!

 I love to hitch up my team of horses. Yet, to be honest, I usually don't if the weather is bad. I deliver mail for a living, so, after being outside all day in the cold I'm not in the mood. When I see Amish out driving horses in all kinds of bad weather I'm impressed. This would be no life for wimps! Don't forget, there is no heater in these buggies. Although many do warm up rocks or potatoes to take along as mini-heaters.

Work Harness

        This is a drawing that was made for, Under the Heavens, but didn't get used so I thought I would share it on Amish Horses Blog.  It is a diagram about work harness and shows the names of harness parts. If you notice, the driving lines are crossed between horses. In this way the driver has a line to the right side of each horse in his right hand, and a line to the left side of the horse's bits in his left hand.

These horses have a strap under their tails called "butt breeching" by draft horsemen in Iowa. This strap is used when the horses are backing a load, or going downhill. The weight of the wagon pushes on this strap.

My own horses, here on the right, have on what we call "hip breeching." That strap is just above the tail and works just the same as the butt breeching.

Most Amish, in the Kalona area, use the hip breeching style on their work horses. The Amishmen that sold me horses and showed me how to work with a team all used this style. One of them said, "Horses like hip breeching better, they can get under a load and really push on it."  I am impressed at how much these guys notice with their horses. On many occasions I've heard comments about what horses "like" and I believe they know what their talking about. The man I bought Karma from told me that she loved her collar.

       Above, you can see the wagon tongue up between my horses. The piece crossing the tongue is a "double-tree" or "evener" (single tree for one horse.) You can see straps coming from the collar area, down toward the double-tree, these are called "tugs" or "traces." At the end of the tugs are heel chains, these are hooked to the double-tree. This is the mechanism for pulling a load with horses so they can share the work.

See the red pole between my horses? That is called a "neck yoke" and ties the front end of two horses together at the collar. My wagon tongue can be seen below the neck yoke, it slips into a ring on the neck yoke and is the connection between the breeching and the load, to hold it back, or to back it up.

In this picture you can see the front end of the tugs coming from the thickest part of the collar. The tug is attached to metal bars, called "hames" these hames lay in a grove in the collar. The collar is a comfortable leather oval that horses push against.

       Horses actually push loads by leaning into their collars.  We call it "pulling a wagon" because they are in front of the wagon, but they really are pushing.
       Harness in other regions of America are constructed slight differently, and in Europe work harness looks very different. This is typical Iowa work harness.

       I hope you enjoyed learning a little about harness and hitching horses. If you did, check out Amish Horses Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AmishHorses

Grandchild Artwork

        My grandchildren know that I love horses!  My granddaughter Lyla was with her mother at a store and saw a packet of horse stickers, she asked her mom to buy them.  When they got home she had made up her mind that she was going to make a horse picture for her grandpa.  My daughter told me that Lyla wanted her to send me this collage in the mail.  I like how she has put everything together, especially the way she put a saddle on one horse.  Lyla is my horse girl, I'm afraid she has the same bug I have.  I am including a picture of Lyla sitting on Coke, even though this picture has appeared in an earlier post.

        My grandson Alex is my scientist.  He studies books about sea creatures, especially sharks, whales and sea turtles.  He drew this picture for me, I think it is a Percheron.  I am also adding a repeat picture of Alex and myself.  We took a horse drawn wagon ride a few weeks ago, at our place.

This little horse picture was on the envelope.