Belgian Horses

 Everybody likes to trace their lineage way back to a king, oh, let's say Charlemagne. I couldn't do that if you held a gun to my head, wouldn't know where to start. Some Scots-Irish married some Germans, came to southern West Virginia, a bunch of them went to Iowa, and there you have it. Simplified Zick genealogy.  Fans of the Belgian draft horse say they, and all draft breeds, sprang from the "great horse" of medieval times, made heavy to carry knights in full armor into battle. And they doubtless turned some serious soil when there wasn't a battle to charge into.

Gentle giants that can exceed six feet at the withers and weigh more than a ton, Belgians are more popular in the U.S. than all other draft breeds combined.  They can pull prodigious weights; a team of Belgians whose combined weight was 4,200 pounds pulled 17,000 pounds for 7.2 feet. Yikes.

 Pulling an antique cultivator (?) and a man is nothing to these enormous animals. The antique equipment looks so frail and spidery; I look at the potential for getting it all stomped on and twisted and it scares me. But Belgians are steady animals, not the stomping kind.

 Coming about...

 Another team, these with natural, not docked, tails. I've got to guess that the suspension on this old machinery makes for a bone-rattling ride. We are so spoiled with our hydraulic shocks and air-conditioned tractor cabs, sitting high above the dust. Imagine how sore you'd be after a day of riding this.

I knew a Belgian mare named Victoria when I was a college student living in the wilds outside the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts. Her owner, an opera singer and woodswoman, used Victoria to haul the wood with which she heated her cottage in the winter. Yes, it was romantic as it sounds, drowning in climbing roses and backed by sugar maples. Susan used to let me ride Victoria into the town square of Petersham, where I would tie her and go get an ice cream cone at the general store.

When I turned Victoria  for home, she'd finally break into a canter in a slow-motion, Belgiany kind of way. It was like riding an overstuffed sofa, absolutely glorious and exhilarating, to have the ground shaking beneath her great hooves and me bareback astride. I loved that horse.


And so it was pure pleasure to watch this gentleman ready his team (two experienced horses with wide blazes, and a young mare on the left) for the exhibition.

Tucking the forelocks.

Despite the blinders, they keep an ear cocked back to keep track of where he is so they won't step on him.

We thanked him, and apologized for being such paparazzi. He didn't mind. He thinks they're beautiful, too.

Belgians snoozing, scratching

Pulling, whoaing

Champing their bits, waiting for the next request.

Draft Horse Field Day

Stumbling on things is what autumn rambles are all about.  Rolling through Adams County, Ohio, Tricia and I stumbled on the 9th Annual Old Fashion (their spelling) Draft Horse, Mule and Pony Field Days six miles south of Peebles, Ohio. It was October 2, so figure it's held each year around then. For information, you can call Dale Grooms 937-544-3123 or 937-587-3293.

On this magical Saturday, already overloading on fancy pumpkins and searing blue skies, the addition of muscular draft animals and antique harness and machinery was almost too much for us.

I would imagine that if you did one of those word profiles of this blog, the word "love" would come up an awful lot. I wish there were other good words. I adore draft animals, their shapes and heads and bottoms; their hooves and noses. So stumbling on this event was like rolling in catnip for me.

There were sweet little girls and their miniature pony and donkey. The brunette reminded me of Ramona the Pest, in a good way. She climbed fearlessly atop a gentle Percheron.

 

His mane was shaved, so she had nothing at all to hang onto, but I knew she wouldn't be dumped by this sweet giant.

 

Off they went, much to the consternation of their other horse friends.

Obviously, the other member of the black Percheron team had to go along or he'd be very unhappy. That's one of the things that charms me about horses. We can make them in any shape we want, but they're still herd animals at heart, and are happiest in a crowd.

Left behind, two draft ponies from the same farm (the black perhaps a cross between a pony and a Percheron)  set up a nickering, then full-blown whinnying from the chestnut. I believe it's a Haflinger, judging from its conformation and coloring.

You can see the Arab blood in its beautiful head. The Haflinger is an Austrian mountain breed, developed in 1874 by crossing the stocky native Tyrol pony with a half-Arab stallion. This gave a taller, finer look to the offspring, and the lovely head with the inward-pointing eartips and slightly dished face speaks of its hot Arab blood. Sorry, sweetie, you'll just have to wait until your friends come back. You'll be OK.

No, I won't!

Taking the Canoes for a Ride

I had one day free this one week, one day when I might possibly call Shila up (who also had one day free that week) and load the canoes in the car and take them out on the water. It was the day we were to leave for Akron, where we’d catch a flight to Massachusetts the next morning. But I had a few free hours to rub together, and Shila and I were itching to get both canoes, newly legal with their big ugly numbers, out for a paddle.

Never one to shoot low, I decided I wanted to explore an arm of Seneca Lake, a mere hour north of home. The skies were gray on wakeup, and the clouds got thicker as the morning progressed. I looked at Intellicast weather—big fat green front, spangled with yellow and pink—covering most of central Ohio and racing toward us. It’s the only day we have. It’ll have to do. I got the kids on the bus, threw the canoes, seats, paddles and lifejackets in the car, tied the back hatch down, called Shila, and met her at a filling station. She jumped in the car, and we were off. I was accelerating up to speed on I-77 when the first raindrops hit the windshield.

Shila and I started laughing, which is mostly what we do when we’re together anyway. We kept going toward Seneca. Maybe it’d stop. The day would be what it would be.

I wasn’t crazy about the idea of rain coming up off the highway and into the back of my Explorer, but I liked that idea better than tying the stupid things on top and watching them waggle their way free in the 65-mile-per-hour wind. The car might get wet. Big deal.

The rain picked up as we found the first possible put-in place. We laughed some more and decided that this would be a reconnaissance mission, a way to explore the perimeter of Seneca Lake, and find all the best put-in’s. And, Shila and Zick being who we are, it would also be a photo safari, an exploration of low light, mist and its effect on fall foliage. Or something like that. We started shooting pictures.There aren’t many draft horses left in the United States, and we owe much to the Amish for keeping the knowledge of how to work and care for them. Speaking of vanishing things, how many more rains will this Mail Pouch barn sign withstand? Mail Pouch isn’t repainting barns any more, and people who want to preserve this iconic advertisement must maintain it themselves. A tableau of disappearing beauty: draft horses, Mail Pouch barn, and a hayrake.Hayrolls in the rain. Jim McCormac has told me, once or twice, that the Department of Agriculture is going to outlaw round hay bales, because the cows can’t get a square meal any more. Hee haw.

A log cabin. More vanishing beauty.Beauty that thrives everywhere: Poison ivy.The vine-draped windows of an abandoned house. I hate to see a house abandoned, but the phoebes and barn swallows, squirrels, coons and mice don’t. Where would you start pulling poison ivy off this house? At the bottom, or the top?The rain poured down. Shila donned her featherweight, fashionable plastic raincoat, which should probably not be used as a toy for babies.

This is Zick, discovering that the extra camera battery she so conscientiously brought is also dead. Just as we found this creeper-smothered barn. Arrrrrggh. End of safari. Photo by Shila Wilson.

We were glad we brought the canoes along for the ride, because they would have been lonely at home. Note nice big legal numbers, just the right size and color to spook waterbirds.To be continued...