Horse Power
This morning I went to the 39th Annual Draft Horse Plowing Exhibition in Beaverton. The OSU Draft Horse Club planned to have a table there to raise awareness of our club (donations naturally in mind), and I went to support CB in the endeavor.
CB and I left our poster at the table to speak for itself, and went off to the plowing field. Y' know, I don't think I'd seen horses plow before. It's neat how the plows are made to dig into the soil with (seemingly) little effort from the plowman - the point and angle of the plow must redirect some of the horizontal force applied by the horses (like gravity (which supplies force only in a vertical direction) pulling an object down an inclined plane (motion that has both horizontal and vertical elements)). There were five or more teams on the field - a mule pair, a tri-some of drafts, a pair of Belgians, etc. Most of the plows were a walk-behind style.
Something fun about events like that is you get people who are excited about a subject. One of the plowmen was a teacher from Salem, and he was telling us about the harnesses on his mules - the bridles were from WWI, he could have used burlap bagging for the back strap, etc. People are also more prone to engage in conversation with unknown people - e.g an elderly English lady who told me about driving a pony and trap to get food during "the war."
It's neat when people keep the old ways "alive" - it would be sad to lose the technology and know-how it took years to accumulate. Horse power is also a sustainable energy source (although I know most people regard it as impractical) and there is value in the connection to Creation it supplies. While I would have to be pretty insane to sell my car and buy a chaise and four, I think modern societies miss something by not keeping draft/carriage animals.
CB and I left our poster at the table to speak for itself, and went off to the plowing field. Y' know, I don't think I'd seen horses plow before. It's neat how the plows are made to dig into the soil with (seemingly) little effort from the plowman - the point and angle of the plow must redirect some of the horizontal force applied by the horses (like gravity (which supplies force only in a vertical direction) pulling an object down an inclined plane (motion that has both horizontal and vertical elements)). There were five or more teams on the field - a mule pair, a tri-some of drafts, a pair of Belgians, etc. Most of the plows were a walk-behind style.
Something fun about events like that is you get people who are excited about a subject. One of the plowmen was a teacher from Salem, and he was telling us about the harnesses on his mules - the bridles were from WWI, he could have used burlap bagging for the back strap, etc. People are also more prone to engage in conversation with unknown people - e.g an elderly English lady who told me about driving a pony and trap to get food during "the war."
It's neat when people keep the old ways "alive" - it would be sad to lose the technology and know-how it took years to accumulate. Horse power is also a sustainable energy source (although I know most people regard it as impractical) and there is value in the connection to Creation it supplies. While I would have to be pretty insane to sell my car and buy a chaise and four, I think modern societies miss something by not keeping draft/carriage animals.
posted by Claire at 17:41
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