One Week Behind the Plow: A Greenhorn Goes to Draft-horse School

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At one point today, one of the students, while driving Jan and Jean, turned to Rod and asked why the horses were easier to handle and more cooperative than they were yesterday.

"Heck, they're not acting any differently at all," Rod replied with a wry grin. " You're the ones who are changing."

THURSDAY

Finally, some progress. Rod asked me to drive the hay wagon on the last leg of the trip back to the barn this evening, and as I took hold of the lines and clicked my tongue for the horses to giddup, I promised myself I'd get things right this time.

We'd spent most of the day learning how to use a logging hitch, and clearing deadfall trees and brush from around a creek bed. (No tractor could've matched the maneuverability and ease with which Jan and Jean and Meg and Madge pulled logs up steep gullies and around snags!) We were beat, but it was that bone-deep, quieting kind of fatigue that you get from working hard outdoors.

No one spoke a word as the wagon trundled down the lane toward the barn, Jan's and Jean's hooves steadily clopping, clopping in rhythm to the clinking of trace chains against the horses' haunches (it is a soothing end-of-day song, Grandpa, as I'm sure you and countless others know). A flock of Canada geese wheeled overhead, honking, as we passed the lakeshore. I could feel the horses' strength and gentleness and heart through the lines in my hands; for the first time, I felt that I was a part of the team, rather than merely an outside power trying (mostly in vain) to exert control over it. For the first time, I understood what this business is all about: It's a partnership between farmer and animal.

As we rolled past the main gate and into the barnyard, Rod pointed to a second hay wagon resting in the middle of the yard, along with an assortment of other implements, and asked me to park our wagon alongside that one.

It was not going to be an easy maneuver; with no extra room to spare, I'd need to bring the horses up close to the fence on our right, turn them sharply to the left, and bring the wagon around in a tight circle, passing between a section offence and a stone boat, in order to pull up parallel to the other wagon.

This time, though, I managed not to panic. I turned the horses to the right, eased back on the lines to slow them, then started the circle. "Come haw, Jan; come haw, Jean," I said softly, encouraging them to turn but at the same time holding them back to an easy walk. The wagon skimmed past the fence. "Come haw, come haw." We slipped by the stone boat. "Come haw, come haw, there." Jan and Jean swung smoothly alongside the parked wagon, and I straightened them out. "Whoa."

" Very good," said Rod, looking at me with a "not bad, for a greenhorn from the East" expression on his face.

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