Friends Forever

My granddaughters and my Amish horses have been friends for years.

Lyla and Kinley have built a long-lasting bond with Karma and Karla even though they live several states apart. Whenever these girls are in Iowa they run out to the barn to see their besties. 

Karma came to our acreage 14 years ago. Lyla is 10. She doesn't remember a time when Karma wasn't part of her life.

Karla and Kinley have also "claimed" each other. There is never an issue about who will hang out with whom. Their friendships are rock solid.

If you scroll down you will see pictures from many years ago. Including a photoshoot for a book cover.

Nevermind that these horses outweigh my granddaughters by almost 1800 pounds. These little girls have never shown any fear. 

Of course, they have nothing to fear because Karma and Karla dearly love them and would never do anything to harm them. I realize that accidents can and do happen. However, I am convinced that these 19 and 20-year-old mares are about as harmless as a pair of Black Labradors. 

I've witnessed Karla step carefully aside to allow a tiny kitten safe passage. She would do all the more to keep Kinely safe. 

We have lots of fun when our out-of-state friends get together.

We go for rides in the wagon and on horseback. 


  

Lyla and Kinley look so tiny seated upon their draft horse friends during this photo-shoot.

The picture below preceded my novella Whispering to Horses and inspired the little Amish girls in the book. After looking at this photo I came up with the idea to put Lyla and Kinley in Amish dresses and do a cover shoot.  

Whispering to Horses is available as an eBook through Barnes and Noble and on Amazon for $2.99

Click on this link: Whispering to Horses

Also as a paperback through Amazon or directly through me: Order a Book

Seeds of Hope

After weeks of hitching my horses whenever the weather and my schedule cooperated, we finally planted sweet corn with the hope of yielding a delicious crop.

I'm a letter carrier for the United States Postal Service. We have been busy right through the Pandemic. This meant working on our sweet

corn project in the evenings.

 Karma and Karla got a workout as we tried to break up our plowed ground. We should have plowed this area last fall. However, last fall was so wet. If you look closer at the photo below you can see the thick slabs of soil that dried out before I got a chance to disc them up. All said, I hitched these girls 6 times to prepare the soil, and the 7th time we planted sweet corn.

My brother-in-law planted corn with a modern-day John Deere planter (In the photo above) while I disc up my plowed ground with horses.

We added a harrow section behind the disc. The harrow combs the soil, smoothing everything into a better seedbed. (In the photo above) In the lower right corner of the picture, you can see the lines where the disc rolled over the clods. In the lower lefthand part of the picture, where the harrow refined our work.

We passed over the rough sections many times before the ground seemed ready.

Then Karma and Karla brought out our little two-row John Deere planter. All of my implements are the style used in the early 1900s. It amazes me that they are still functional even though they are around 100-years-old.

Working with horses and antique equipment gives me the sensation of time travel. I feel somehow connected to the past and those who used these very implements over all the years.

My old John Deere planter is designed to cut a track, drop kernels, and gently pack the soil closed. The wheels are flanged perfectly for closing the soil over the seed.

Now everything is planted, in hope of a good harvest. These pictures were taken several weeks ago and now our sweet corn is emerging. However, this growing season hasn't been ideal and the stalks are small. I'll share more later.

Click here to learn about my books: Books by Thomas Nye

Plowing through a Pandemic

 Life has to go on, Pandemic or not. Karma and Karla are ready and willing to help do their part. We pulled our plow out of the barn and brushed off cobwebs. This Emerson plow is over a hundred years old. No doubt, it broke up soil during the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918. That's the year my wife's parents moved onto this farm.

 My horses and I are working to get this plot ready for sweet corn. I'll try and do more posts as we progress and let you see more of the process.

I've been following the pandemic through the news. Iowa Public Radio does a fine job of keeping us informed. Just recently, I discovered that one of my favorite radio personalities lives on my mail route. I knew the name but didn't make the connection until last week.

Another of my favorite news sources happens to be The Irish Times podcast. They do a daily Confronting Coronavirus podcast with great information. Not only do I LOVE listening to Irish voices but I find it useful to know what people outside of the U.S. are experiencing. 

Here are a few of my personal observations: We, here in Iowa, and everyone in the world are facing very similar struggles. We all have moments of fear. Only the Lord knows how this will all end. We also experience some beautiful lessons. Many of us have learned what benefits a slower lifestyle can provide. We've been made aware of the value of freedom, family, and friends. Some people are making the most of this timeout. Others are in survival mode. Most of us have a mixture of both good and bad. My Irish friends have been encouraging me to let both happen. Enjoy the good experiences and lessons without putting pressure on ourselves to be productive.

Many authors are finding it difficult to focus on writing, as I have. We find ourselves distracted. My Iowa Public Radio friends explained that the desire to watch too much news is a survival instinct. Our subconscious minds are searching for information that will take away the unknown element.

One of my daughters expressed that she had been feeling depressed lately. I encouraged her by saying, "The world is experiencing unprecedented suffering through illness, job loss, and isolation. We might not comprehend everything with our conscious mind; however, our souls feel the weight of it all."

 It got dark before we could finish on our first outing. We were able to finish the second time out. Karma grazes just outside of the fence, showing our completed plowing project. Meanwhile, we'll keep plowing through this pandemic.

Would you be interested in reading about life on an Amish farm?

Click on this link: Books by Thomas Nye

Famous Without Knowing It

 If you follow my blog, read my books, or if you "Like" the Amish Horses Facebook page, then you know about Karma and Karla, my team of Percheron mares. I purchased these horses from an Amish friend of mine. Thus, the Amish Horses title. These mares were raised and trained on an Amish farm. They are full-sisters born one year apart. Karma and Karla have never been any further than a ten-mile radius from where they were born. Yet, they are known the world over! Not because they have fancy blood-lines or perfect conformation. Their claim to fame stems from having huge hearts.

 Obviously, you can't see their hearts or personality in a photograph. (Well, maybe you can?)
The way people have come to know these horses are through my books. Karma, Karla and their niece Coke inspired a book series titled The Amish Horses Series.
This set of books share the adventures of sixteen-year-old Lenny Gingerich as he leaves his city life behind and spends time with his Amish relatives.
Lenny's Amish grandpa teaches valuable lessons about life and horses. Lenny learns even more about life and himself from a team of Percheron horses named Tug and Train. My books have been read in several countries. The Amish Horses blog has been viewed by thousands of people all over the world. Without Karma, Karla and Coke, I wouldn't have a story to tell. Their pretty faces are why people click "Like" on my photographs. They have been the subject matter in hundreds of pictures, including several book covers. They were recently filmed to appear on a TV show. (Stay tuned and I'll share more info on that later.)

When it's all said and done, Karma and Karla are just an ordinary team of farm horses. However, that is what makes them so special. They are just real! 

(They probably have seen a camera more than most Amish horses.)

Karma and Karla take us back to the good-old-days of family-farm history and have enriched people's lives all over the world.

And they don't even know it. (Or, maybe they do?)

Plowing with Horses

 Although I've had draft horses for years, this is the first I've owned a sulky plow.

This past April, I purchased an Emerson plow at the Kalona Draft Horse Sale. It is probably more than 100-years-old and works amazingly well.

A "sulky" plow has one plowshare (digging blade) and a seat for the driver. (as opposed to a walk behind style)
There are also "gang" plows which have more than one plowshare. In my novel Under the Heavens, main character Lenny drives a "gang" plow with six-horses. Unfortunately, I tell the readers that he is driving a "sulky" plow. I mention and correct the error in book II, Catbird Singing. If you have read or want to read the Amish Horses Series, this blog post should help you visualize what plowing with horses is like.

After I got my plow home, I needed to come up with a tongue. This type of plow needs a tongue and mine didn't have one.

 I stopped in to visit one of my Amish friends. He and his boys dropped what they were working on to search through their collection of old plows for a tongue that I could use this spring. They plan to make a new one for me before next summer.

This tongue is longer than I need for two horses. It was made for a six-horse-hitch. I had to add a section of chain-links so I could use it.

You may notice that my furrows aren't that straight.
Well, I'm a novice.
I have plowed with a six-horse hitch on an Amish farm. However, they set everything up and gave clear instructions on how to proceed. This time I was on my own.

My experiences of plowing with a six-horse hitch on an Amish farm are shared in detail with my readers in the Amish Horses Series.

 You can see a light section of soil that was plowed a few days earlier. The darker area was just plowed, and I finished up the grassy strip after I snapped this photo.
Karma and Karla patiently waited while I took pictures. They are 18 and 17-year-old sisters and happy for a break in the action.