drucker Loc: Oregon

Thanks! No problem. Yes, the draft horses hold a lot of great memories for me. The largest number I remember having was eight although the main horse barn had stalls for 24. My great-grandfather had the contract for grading the roads in the township and we have a photo of a hitch of 20 horses and mules hooked up to the grader. They would lease horses from the neighbors so that they could use one hitch of 20 in the morning and another hitch of 20 in the afternoon. One person would ride the grader and move the blade up and down as needed and another would either ride one of the front horses or walk beside the front row to guide them. At sharp corners, they would stop and then the horses would step sideways until they were facing the new direction. It can be a tricky maneuver even with a hitch of six to keep a horse from stepping over the traces, but with a hitch of 20 trying to keep all of the traces taut to avoid a step-over would be a real challenge and a test of training. I can remember horses being carefully placed within the hitch -- some just didn't deal well with being in the middle of a three- or four-abreast hitch.

I get my draft horse "fix" every summer at the Oregon State Fair. We try to attend some of the harness competitions -- two-, four-, and six-horse-hitch driving and my favorite the pulling contests.

I grew up on a dairy/grain farm in Kansas. My grandfather loved his horses and trained them for driving competition and pulling. In the later years, he enjoyed nothing more than taking a team and "going to visit the neighbors," which usually meant a four-mile trip around the section where we lived and the neighbors that lived on the three sides around us. In the last few years when he was over eighty, "I'm going to hitch up a team" really meant "Please come hitch a team for me," because he could no longer handle the harness by himself. But, once on the seat and the reins in his hands, he and the team were "one," and with just a few spoken commands and a light touch on the reins, he was on his way. He also enjoyed taking the big hay wagon to Halloween and other church parties and the big skid sled when we had snow -- if kids were involved, he was there.

I wasn't much into photography yet, but I've always wished I had a photo of him on his evening rounds of closing up the chicken houses and barns and stopping at the corral gate with the setting sun in the background. The horses would usually be waiting there because they knew he often had some treat for them, an apple, a carrot, a bit of alfalfa or just a friendly pat on the nose.

newtoyou Loc: Eastport

Some may have dipped the nets in a chemical.
That was not the intent. The constant movement when the horse was in motion was why they worked.
Per a friend who kept horses. How did horseflies get there name?
I have heard them called names you won't hear in church.
Bill