Learning to Drive

Getting behind the wheel. I think most of the people reading this remember their first time behind the wheel. The anxiety and excitement of it. Soon with practice it fades and becomes second nature, something we feel we can do while we text, listen to radio, and hurtle down the freeway at 65 mph (or more, as is the custom, it seems). Today, I had a similar experience except I wasn't in a car, I was driving horses. On the farm I'm working on, we have Percheron horses. As I learned in my scramble to look well informed to teach children, I learned that Percherons are a French breed and the 3rd largest breed of draft horses in the world (behind the Belgians and Clydesdales). Since we are replicating a 1900 farm in Iowa, the breed is very common for draft use. I had some very basic lessons around the horses previous to this. Very basics like,"Don't walk up behind a horse", "Don't let it stand on your foot", "Don't coil the lead rope around your hand", "Talk softly" and "You are in charge of the horse, so make him/her understand you are in charge." But beyond that, I had very little training in passing. That pretty much changed today when Kyle stepped onto the farm.

Kyle has a louder than usual voice. I think it comes from being a sub/teacher and has way more experience with farming than I will probably ever know. He saw things I was doing by habit that were not right and sought to correct those habits. Loudly. I wasn't put off by it, I kinda knew I wasn't doing it correctly but if no one takes the time with me, how am I to know any different? Nevertheless, he straightened me out.

Ben on the left, Judah on the right

First thing was the basics of the harness. I'm not going to bore you with each and every part of the harness and it's function or with the whole steps of how to harness a horse. Your horse harness might be different than the one I was using so, grain of salt. The collar goes on first, then the harness itself from the britchen (the back part of the horse's straps), the saddle pad (mid body pad), and the hames, (metal things that fit into the collar, they look like horns). All of this straps down from the front of the horse to the back. The hames must fit into the collar or the whole thing is useless. Once is it all on, the horse can be haltered with a bit and is ready to hitch.

The cart

Today we used a small cart. We were working with Judah and Ben, our boys, today. Kyle drove the team over to the cart perpendicular so one horse had to step over the tongue (the wooden beam the comes out from the thing you wish to use) and back the team up  and hitched the tug chains to the double tree (a part that balances how each horse pulls) and in front to the neck yoke.

He drove the cart for a while with me standing next to him and he explained how to hold the guide lines. Holding the lines too slack and the horses will allows them to set their own pace, which usually means going fast and we don't want them to go fast. You can't plow, plant, cultivate, or rides safely fast. Holding the lines too tight is counterintuitive; I'm pulling the horse back but I'm telling the horse to go forward. Hands are in front with the lines in an "English grip" (palms down with the thumbs to me and the guide lines going over my thumbs), elbows close to the body, weight distrubted like sea legs. Pulling slightly left will tell the team to drift left, while slightly slacking the right. Calling their names individually or as "team" as a prepatory command alerts them that I want to speak at one or both of them. "Step-up" starts the team forward. Commands are given a little above conversational level; "Gee" is right, "Haw" is left, "Easy" is slow, and "Whoa" is stop. I had learned this previously working with dogs with Robert Stradley's Adenture Quest Institute while I worked at Paradise Springs. Because of the way the cart was constructed I had a slight sustained squat going and my hands feel tight across the palm by the end. As a driver, I have to watch the horses and where they are going, what they see, and how even the double tree is. If it is equal, both horses are pulling equally and not drifting. If there is an imbalance, it is either a slight left or right by the horses or one of the horses isn't pulling true. We did a couple laps around the farm and on the nearby roads. Kyle seemed to think I did well, or that's what he said in my presence.


Going for a ride (Judah on the left,
 Ben on the right)

After driving was getting them unharnessed. Basically it works the exact opposite as putting the harness on. It starts in the back and goes forward to the head, then goes back off the horse. Then he showed me how to pick their hooves and shoes and how to hold it while I was picking at it. It's kind of exciting to get that kind of practice in and really spend time training.

So what is the take away from all this? That's nice I got to go around on the horseys and all that. Draft animals are power and power has to be controlled. We can't switch on our ride-on lawnmower and just kinda not pay attention to what we are doing. Horses are similar, you can't be leisurely about being in control because they will learn to not respect you or worse, ignore you when you are giving a command that could people's life at risk, like,"Whoa!" Control of an animal allos you to be free from the burden of walking. People from centuries past have used animals as transportation. Learning to ride a horse or harness a horse to a cart is a freedom from walking everywhere, just the same way learning to drive a horse is a lot like driving a car. Both have a lot of power you can't be lazy about and both have a responsibility to safety that cannot be ignored.