Rural Heritage April/May 2026

D raft A nimal P ower NET work

and cut flowers. It’s seen several iterations as I moved from Maine to New York and leased different plots of land. For two seasons I labored along using human power while working full time elsewhere. Finally, I found a more permanent home at Northland Sheep Farm in Marathon N.Y., whose farmers, Donn Hewes and Maryrose Livingston, kindly allow me to use their horses and some equipment for my farming venture. Adding horses to my farm was a game changer. I felt confident enough to plant more acreage, thinking that the efficiencies of using draft animals would make up the time it would take me alone. This is how things look now at the beginning of the fourth season in Marathon. Everything we do is accomplished using horses and a teamster or two. We open sod using a walking plow and two horses. The soil here is heavy, rocky and in some spots 12 inches deep or less. Once the sod has died back, we disc using a two-gang implement. Normally, we spread compost and disc again with a lighter disc to incorporate. Finally, bed shaping commences in one of two ways. If the crop to be planted is an annual, like Calendula, we make single row beds with my McCormick Deering straddle row cultivator. If the crop to be planted is a perennial that takes years to grow to size, we use the Horse-Powered Tractor to make 60-inch beds. The Horse-Powered Tractor is a versatile machine that Donn and Bill West fabricated and is essentially a steel frame with steerable wheels, and a three point hitch and tool bar, both of which can be raised and lowered with battery-powered hydraulics. The custom neck yoke and evener ensure that the horses walk far enough apart to avoid walking in the bed, a feature that does present a learning curve to the team, which is accustomed to walking much closer together. Drop rings help. This machine takes two people to operate – one to drive the horses and one to steer the wheels and operate the hydraulics. The resulting 60-inch bed uses space efficiently, while creating that coveted raised bed for our sometimes soggy soil.

by Anna Knapp-Peck L ots of new and exciting things are happening at the Draft Animal Power Network (DAPNet)! The organization has been able to purchase a computer software system which will make the on line experience much more user friendly as people navigate the website. We are in the process of redoing the DAPMap, so it more accurately reflects our members worldwide. Some volunteers are looking forward to having a promotional table at the World Draft Cattle Symposium June 25-27 at Tiller's International in Scotts, Mich. Another exciting event is the first DAPNet-supported Teamsters Gathering in the South. The Southeast Teamster Gathering will take place April 10-12, 2026, at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, 3501 Lexington Road, Harrodsburg, Ky. For more information go to https:// www.draftanimalpower.org/gathering. The most valuable thing about DAPNet is its members and the skills and experience they bring to the organization. Many of those members have written about different topics related to farming with draft animals and contributed them to the DAPNet Newsletter. The following was included in the May 2025 Newsletter. Field Work at Horsetail Herb Farm by Becky Frye T he phrase “eld work” produces all kinds of images, memories and questions when mentioned to a small scale farmer like me. I imagine sweating in the sun, hoe in hand while murdering small weeds left and right. I remember the perfectly timed cultivation that kept my Calendula from being overrun. I ask myself, as thousands of farmers have already asked, “how can I accomplish this more quickly?” The answer for me is horses. My farm, Horsetail Herb Farm, is a wee 3 acres of certified organic medicinal herbs, culinary herbs, garlic

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