Rural Heritage June/July 2026

D raft A nimal P ower NET work

DAPCast podcast. Cal comes with vast experience from producing his own content on the Grazing Grass Podcast. Nora Ballard is an award-winning cinematographer, she will be working on the series of instructional videos. The organization is also busy with the planning of the 2026 Field Days to be held at Shelburne Farms in Shelburne Vt. The Board and volunteers are working hard to create new educational opportunities to meet the needs of new teamsters and those with experience looking for more knowledge. The following article was included in the March 2026 edition of the DAPNet Newsletter. Learning from Bruno: The Process of Training an Older Animal B runo came into my life in December of 2020. It was the middle of the pandemic. That was a rough time for my kids, especially my son Troy. He’s a social guy and very active in sports. The loss of contact with his friends and teammates was hard. One day while he was supposed to be doing remote work, he found a calf for sale on a buy/sell group. He asked if we could get him expecting me to say no. Occasionally, I say yes, and we went on a two-hour road trip to get a weaned Holstein steer with poor conformation. Troy taught Bruno to lead some and spent a lot of time with him during that first year. Then the pandemic was over, and life resumed. Troy finished high school and went to college and Bruno was left out to pasture. Eventually Troy moved into his own place, and the question of what to do with Bruno had to be decided. I had acquired a four-year-old steer with no education. Bruno and I went back to school. The first thing I realized was that working with an older animal needed a different approach than I use for training calves. The first few months were spent tying Bruno to a tree and putting the harness on and taking it off. He learned to be comfortable with the weight of the harness and trace chains making noise and bumping his legs. He began to wait at the

by Anna Knapp-Peck

DAPNET KEEPS GROWING LIKE A PLANT REACHING FOR THE SUN!

S ome of the most recent changes are the hiring of people for the grant funded positions that were advertised earlier in the year. We are happy to welcome Ivy Pagliari as the project manager. Ivy is helping to implement the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and assisting with administrative tasks and the different aspects of running Field Days. Many people may know Ivy from past Field Days she has been an active volunteer for several years. Cal Hardage is joining us as an audio engineer; he will be producing more episodes of the

Troy with Bruno in 2020.

Rural Heritage

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