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

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I felt as if I had just hit a home run with the bases loaded. Come to think of it, I felt even better than that.

This is our last night here; there'll be half a day of class tomorrow (we'll learn what to look for when buying a draft animal and get some practice cleaning and trimming hooves), and then we'll all go our separate ways.

It won't be easy to leave. Not only have I just begun to discover the joys of working with the ranch's horses, but I have also come to consider the instructors and students here good friends. They are fine, funny, enjoyable people. I'll miss them.

FRIDAY

SOME 30,000 FEET OVER IOWA, EASTBOUND)

This morning Frank and I were helping haul hay to the ranch’s cattle and horses, taking our last turns driving Jan and Jean and the wagon across Slack Point’s rolling pastures. Now we’re settled comfortably in the plush seats of a jetliner, zooming along I don't know how fast toward home in North Carolina. It's quite a contrast. I still have the feel of leather lines in my hands, still have the rhythm of horses' hooves in my ears, can still sense the weight of harness on my shoulder.

We're not leaving Slack Point as expert drivers, of course, but we are leaving with enough training and experience to safely and successfully follow the parting advice Rod gave us today: "When you get home, find yourself a gentle, well-broke horse, and practice what we've taught you."

Virtually all the students intend to do just that. Animal power offers a multitude of economic and operational advantages for people who want to break into farming on a small, diversified scale and who love animals. But it takes more than ambition and means and hard work and believing that horsepower is the right way to go; it also takes skills. Now we all have a start on those, too.

The biggest benefit of a course such as the one at Slack Point is that it gives novices an opportunity to learn from master teamsters, and to work with willing, well-trained teams. There simply is no better way to get a good grounding in the basics, to pick up many of the subtler skills that usually come only from years of doing, and to experience the pure pleasure of working with good draft animals.

Forrest Davis, one of the West's best-known teamsters and the (now-retired) founding instructor at Slack Point, calls farming with draft animals "a peaceful way of work." It is indeed; it is skill, science, and art all in one. And thanks to places like Slack Point Ranch, the skills and science and art will be around for a long time to come.

I think maybe Grandpa would've approved of this trip after all.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This year, the Slack Point Ranch School of Driving and Farming With Draft Horses will hold seven one-week sessions, beginning April 14. Weekly rates include room and board; enrollment is limited. For more details, contact Patti Brown, Slack Point Ranch, Rt. 1, Box 39-B, Polson, MT 59860 (try to send a dollar or a self-addressed, stamped envelope with your request, to help defray costs).

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