Abby

Abby is a Belgian draft horse trained by the Amish.  She is about 23 years old according to the vet.  David was told she was 16.  A Colonial Plantation Myth holds that  she was a really great horse and that she LOVES to work.

Warren and I spent 2 hours trying to figure out her work harness.  Neither of us had ever seen one before.  We took her out to the field and gave her some hay.  We found the harness in the barn, and put it in the wheelbarrow and wheeled it down to her, where we set it out on a fence to look at the different parts.  I looked on Wikihow using my phone to find pictures of how to put it on Abby.

We figured out that we had all the parts but the collar, so I went to the barn to get it.  I brought it back to the field, and Abby took one look at it and ran off.

First the tether

Warren decided that Frye needed better grass and also needed to learn to stay on a tether as his first lesson.
He set a large steel post in the ground and tethered Frye to it with a chain attached to his halter.

We had to keep visiting children away from Frye, we decided after he

licked one of them from top to bottom ("OOOH, ICKY!" said the kid)

Frye

Frye is quite friendly.  He likes to lick you if he can.  He will allow you to lead him with great difficulty. He has a tendency to lower his horns toward you on the way to wherever you are taking him.  He is not very well behaved, and is learning that you are much smaller than him and he can do whatever he wants.  He probably weighs about 800 lbs. and is 14 months old.

Colonial Plantation Era

This growing season I got busy with 5 new chicks, 2 tufted buff goslings (send by mail from Metzger Poultry in California.  Since one of my hens "went broody" this spring, I gave her two fertilized eggs to hatch which she did and now I also have 2 sweet cuckoo maran chicks along with the others.

I made Hugelkultur beds this year, since my raised bed frames were rotting, and visited Sweetwater Bakery to learn how to load and burn the wood for my oven.

I called Warren Graham, my beekeeping mentor and asked him to come and consult on the condition of my hives this spring.  I mentioned  that I would be willing to help him with the bees at Colonial Plantation as this year I won't be volunteering at Rushton Farm.

Two days later I got a call from Warren asking me if I wanted to help train the steer at Colonial Plantation.  He had just found out that the farmer there was leaving and there was no one to help handle the steer who is 13 months old and very large.  David, the farmer, raised him from a calf, bottle feeding him.  Also, there was a draft horse there that no one knew how to harness.