Harness, Alfalfa, and Other Topics

To anyone who might be interested in this blog, I apologize for being so intermittent in my recent posting--I have not had much desire or time to write about what I am doing recently, though a lot of interesting things have happened in the last two weeks.

As far as horse work goes, I have improved greatly in my ability to put on and take off a harness and to "catch" horses from their paddock. Most of the harnesses on the farm are of a certain (and very common) style called "western" or "box britchen," named after the shape of a certain part of the harness. There is one other style, the "yankee britchen," which I think is a bit more comfortable for the horses because of how it distributes the load on the horses' back ends. Bits, the metal pieces fitted into the horses mouth to guide its movements, vary considerably as well. All of the bits that we use on the farm are mild, which means that they cannot cause the horse as much discomfort as a harsh bit. It is generally preferable to use the mildest bit possible to get a good reaction from the horse.

The horses on the farm are used for plowing, smoothing the ground after plowing, cultivating weeds, moving hay and other heavy things around on wagons, mowing hay, raking hay, and producing and spreading high-quality manure. In the last week, the horses hauled several loads of manure out to a field that will be used to grow field corn (the kind used for flour). They have also been used to cultivate weeds in the garden (which is really large by garden standards, being well over an acre) and to haul hay. Today, for example, another intern and I brought a wagon to the hay storage shed to haul a load of grass hay for the working horses to eat, and to haul bales of alfalfa for combining. Alfalfa for combining? I will explain.

The farm produces a huge quantity of high quality alfalfa hay that is fed to horses and sold as an herbal supplement for people to eat. This might sound rather ridiculous (if you don't know much about alfalfa, it is not usually eaten by people), but it makes the farm over $30,000 a year in gross income because it is in high demand by herbal wholesalers but somewhat difficult to produce. The farm has a small modified combine machine that separates stems of alfalfa from leaves. Working near the combine to bag alfalfa leaves and pile up the resulting straw is dusty and loud, and is generally hated by all involved. However, it is not a huge part of the work that we do, considering how important the alfalfa crop is to the farm's income.