Prince and Babe

We had a team of horses on the old farm; one female and the other male.  Babe of course was the female and was a bit laid back;  when I would harness her she would push me up against the stall and resist my taking her bridle off and pulling the bit into her mouth.  She was pushy.

Prince on the other hand was eager to be harnessed and enjoyed it when I took off his bridle and slipped the bit into his mouth.  He backed up all by himself and I didn't even have to lead him out into the barn year.  He just went out and stood still waiting for me Babe and me.

Now horses should be a "team" and that means that should both pull their end of the work load.  I had to slip several links of the small chains which fastened her to whatever we were going to pull;  Prince was strong and I could lengthen out his chain all the way out, and that way I figured it would even out the pull when I took the reigns and tapped them both on their hind legs to start pulling.

Babe would almost let Prince do all of the pulling so I would give her a sharp tap on her rear and she would jump and start pulling again.  It's like any couple working together; each one must do their share.  I suppose males are more apt to like to do heavy work; but I've seen many mares who would take the bit and start out before any male horse.

Now there is different loads we had to pull with that team of horses; when hooked up to a our mowing machine which we mowed down our hay, it was simple and they worked side by side.  These machines had a long bar with triangle shape to the blades and we would have to take the whole bar out and file each blade by hand.  If one was broken, it would have to be removed and replaced by hammering rivets into place.  Then we would always pour some old oil along the whole blade, replace it into the mowing machine bar...and away we would go again.  The county also did this with the grass along side the rural roads.  They would have a stack of mowing blades which they carried with them on their mower.  That way, that didn't have to stop as we did, but when they went back to town, they would sharpen and fix them.

Then along came tractors.  Our neighbors bought one long before we did.  Grand dad didn't believe that tractors would be around very long, he was wrong.  Finally he found an old John Deere which has steel lugs sticking out of each steel wheel.  These were very dangerous tractors.  Many farmers were killed when trying to some work on a side hill and the tractor would roll over onto them.

The first time we were bringing a load of hay up to the barn, at the gate that closed leading into the barn yard, as grand dad approached the gate he yelled, "WHOA!"  Of course the tractor couldn't hear as his horses did, and so we went right on through the closed gate before grand dad realized what he did...I could have fallen off that load of hay from laughing, but instead I knew how embarrassed he must have felt, so I just hid my wild giggles and pretended that everything was OK.

I still think often about our horses; their smell, their different personalities and it's kind of like our modern age, where instead of talking to a real person, we're put on hold and listen to music until a pre-recorded message tells us to wait for the "beep" before it will record our message.  "Hello, this is your operator, whom do you wish I should connect you to?"