Putting in winter wheat

On a recent sunny morning, with a great dealing of jingling harness and shuffling hooves, Bryan and Amber hooked up three of their horses to pull a cultipacker and wheat planter around a field near Clinton. Zack, Amy's brother, was there to provide help and a healthy dose of sarcasm.

The three horses, Socks (the young buck), Shadowfax (the old gray lady), and Belle (the retired Amish workhorse) surged against their harnesses, expecting to accelerate easily as they do when pulling a wagon or hay rake. They were brought up short by the heavy weight of the cultipacker and the planting teeth of the wheat planter.

With a sharp "Giddyap!" from Bryan and a flick of the reins, they dipped their heads and dropped their shoulders into the harness. There was a brief pause where we all held our breath, and then the machinery broke free and started moving. Off they went, huffing and puffing across the field, with Bryan perched on the planter, beaming away.

You don't see many people farming with horses anymore. This field is next a main road that heads north out of town. Cars and trucks slowed down all morning to see what was going on. A minivan even pulled into the farm lane and parked for awhile, watching the horses turn the field to corduroy.

Amber later told me about a similar incident a few days earlier when they were farming with horses. A car on the road came to a sudden stop, backed up and turned down their farm lane. The car bumped and swayed right up to where they had paused with the horses and implement. Slowly levering himself up from his seat, an elderly gentleman appeared, and with the assistance of a cane, he walked up to them.

He said, "I just about started crying when I saw horses in the field, pulling equipment. I just had to stop. I hope you don't mind..."

To paraphrase a paraphrase, he said that he had grown up on a farm near Ypsilanti before World War II, and his family has farmed with horses. And as a young farmer, he had used horses for many years before switching to tractors and machines.

After a really good conversation about farming with horses, he climbed into his car and drove off with a wave.