[LostFarmer]

Good luck. I have tried lots of different gloves. My favorite are a pair I received for Christmas they are cheesy looking but have been real warm and not too slick. I also use the green cloth ones in bulk. Have 4 pair and take a set of dry ones to change out into leaving yesterdays 2 pair by the fire. The only thing you can do well with gloves on is wet your pants. LF

[LostFarmer]

The design works I think the runners need a little tlc. Look at the ski from a snowmobile and also from an old bob sled. You will notice that the departure from the level plane is gradual. This is so important in how easy a runner pulls. Does it tend to plow into the snow or ride up on top of the snow. So a radius on the runner instead of the angle point might help. LF

[LostFarmer]

To My Democratic Friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an
environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive,
gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday — Practiced
within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your
choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the
religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice
not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically
uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar
year 2010, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other
cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not
to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the
only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without
regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or
sexual preference of the wishee.

To My Republican Friends:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

[LostFarmer]

@jenjudkins 13727 wrote:

Shorter horses?!? You guys are wimps. I’m 5’5″ and harness a 18 hand percheron easily. What’s up with that! You just push it up and over and that’s all there is to it…:D

When you harness every day for 6 months at a stretch that extra 8 inches matters. 😉

[LostFarmer]

You get smaller horses. 😀 I have ponies that are 11.2 hands, and 13.2 hands. I also have a shire mares team that are 17.1. and 17.2. It takes some grunt to get the heavy spotted harness on the shires. The little horses are much easier to deal with. I am 5’8 and manage just fine.

My neighbor and mentor is all of 5’2 on a good day. He had a team of 18 hand plus belgains that he pulled. He just threw the harness up there and went. He did have a short ladder that he used to check the stuff he couldn’t see from the ground.

Have fun. LF

[LostFarmer]

I have an older (72 yo) friend that pulls horses with us. Bryce has pulled a lot of horses over a lot of years. He feeds with them and plows as well. Bryce is notorious for hooking mismatched and unorthodox teams together. He had a bay belgain shire percheron mare hooked with her red roan son out of belgain. The weren’t within a hand of the same height but weighed up about the same. Anyhow, one of the other pullers was razing him about his matched team. He turned and said, “When your hooked onto 8000 lbs and the boat is moving you look down the eveners are even THAT is matched.”

The longer I am around horses the more I agree with him. LF

[LostFarmer]

No plans that I know of. I have a couple of these sleighs and P-L has one. LF

[LostFarmer]

The width of the single tree is the width of a horses a$$ or and ass’s a$$. Seriously it isn’t that complicated as long as it needs to be to not chaffe. I like the evener about 8″ longer that the singletrees for tongue work. I have 23″ ones on my little ponies, and 32 on the large ponies. The shires have a little longer but I don’t remember the dimension. It all varies. For field work make the evener the length that you want them to walk in the furrow. On a sleigh the evener should be the width between runners so the horses beat the trail down infront of the runners. LF

[LostFarmer]

Yes, that would be Fahrenheit. And where J-L is the wind does blow most of the winter. We are at 6600 feet elevation and Wes a little higher. Been -30 F already once this winter and it isn’t even officially winter yet. 😡

Cold enough that is kiss from your mother in law is warmer. :p

[LostFarmer]

Just like you don’t go run a marathon in the cold you don’t really push a team to where they are roaring in that cold. But I have hooked up at MUCH colder than 0 an closer to -20 many times a year. Hard to start a tractor at that cold but the horses haven’t failed me yet. LF

[LostFarmer]

To be honest I am not sure I would put the time and effort to get that sled working. Just as it takes no more feed to care for a good horse than a poor one it is about the same with equipment. It takes no more to fix and maintain quality equipment than it does to deal with cobbled together stuff.

Carl I would in general agree that metal sleighs are not as good but disagree in particular as I have seen some incredible steel bob sleds. My neighbor and mentor builds them and I was skeptical at first. After a couple of uses I was a convert. My grandfather was so anti steel sleigh that he would not have one on the place. My uncle built one and grandpa fought it until he used it, once. Then he was singing the praises. I love the way the sleds track and “walk” over the frozen turd tundra known as a feed ground.

http://i512.photobucket.com/albums/t323/lostfarmer1/Winter%20Feeding/Sleigh2.jpg
http://i512.photobucket.com/albums/t323/lostfarmer1/Winter%20Feeding/DSCN0003_1.jpg

These work and work well. LF

[LostFarmer]

By the time you get to be 70 years old and telling this story to the grand kids those mules will have opened the gate. They then would pitch off the hay unharness themselves and be waiting at the barn when you got home. :p

It is always interesting how quick you can go from no big deal to a hell of a fix and back. You must be living right. I would haven’t been that lucky. LF

[LostFarmer]

Geoff,
We are in the Teton Valley on the Wyoming boarder. It is about 10 hours to Moscow from here if the roads are good. Thanks for the welcome. LF

[LostFarmer]

A Dealt Card by Karli Moulton

The winters icy breath, as cold as fear
Forces chill inside every living one
Chilling hearts dealing cards deciding death
The icicles like cold daggers of doom
Freeze life sucking breath from every cold room
Chilling hearts dealing cards deciding death
The frosts nip as painful as sharks bite
Haughtily decides who will die tonight
Chilling hearts dealing cards deciding death
The moons glare as chilling as a cold nail
Hammers heat out of this frozen morbid land
Chilling hearts dealing cards deciding death
Icy fear cold daggers sharks bite cold nails
Chilling hearts dealing cards deciding death

My daughter wrote this for her 8th grade English class. A little dark but not bad for a kid. 😉

[LostFarmer]

I too am late to the party but…

I like to start horses without blinders. I want them to know what is going on and what they are hearing. BUT, after a certain time I find it is easier to drive them with blinders. Not so they don’t know but so they don’t anticipate the next command. It is hard to drive a tourist in a straight line. But I do like to start them open to know what they are doing. When they start to clue in on our body language it is time to put on blinders. LF

[Author]

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