Description

Stories in this issue:

• Soil Health for Plants and People: Jenifer Morrissey writes about Orchard Hill Farm and the Laing family’s research, implementation and promotion of healthy soil practices. She incorporates the writings of many others to reinforce the importance of these practices to improve the quality of our food
• Living Simple or Simply Living: Ralph Rice describes how he manages a simple, content and peaceful life on his horse-powered farm. He gives us some advice based on learning this the hard way.
• Resilience in Nicodemus: Jenifer Morrissey chronicles the history of Nicodemus, Kansas, the only remaining all-Black community in the Western frontier at the end of reconstruction. She describes the migration there, life in the area, successes, failures, crops, businesses and more recent farming activities that have given it new life. She describes the difficulties African American farmers had and still have as chronicled in Modern Farmer, Stewards blog, KSBA and other sources.
• Building a Corn Shock: Ralph Rice walks us through building a corn shock by hand and then using his home made shocking horse. This is a great group project and makes for a beautiful corn field in the fall.
• Broadforks: George Kuepper introduces us to the broadfork. There are lots of pictures of him demonstrating how they are used for deep tillage while not mixing soil strata.
• Comer Wagon Train: The Comer Family hosts an annual wagon train featuring horses and mules in harness and under saddle beginning in Osgood, Indiana. The route traverses beautiful countryside and the Otter Creek is an exciting moment for teamsters and teams alike.
• Tales from Carter County – Tetanus Treatment: Jerry Hicks shares another priceless tale about saving his Appaloosa from a tetanus infection during his college days. Three times a day, for a month, he treated her infected frog, fed her and watered her.
• Amish Ingenuity: With Horse Progress Days 2020 cancelled, Joe decides to head to some of the businesses that show there and see what is new. He finds businesses that have diversified beyond draft animal powered equipment. Read about some of these businesses in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania and their successful products – both for draft animal farming and other uses.
• Pioneer Retools to Adapt: Joe Mischka visits draft animal equipment maker, Pioneer Equipment, and reports the new cultivator they are developing. He then tells us about their use of LEAN workflow and how it helped them roll cots and portable barriers for use in the health care industry for Covid-19 facilities.
• Lightning Wagon Train: We have lots of great photos of this wagon train from Shirley “Lightning” Richards farm in Hustonville, Kentucky to the Casey County Fairgrounds. The whole group is fed there, spends the night and returns via a different route the next day. One can see horse, mules and ponies pulling a variety of wagons.
• Family Farm Field Day: Jonas Schlabach describes this annual event held in Holmes County, Ohio. The focus of the event is to encourage full-time small, diversified farmers and homesteaders (or those wanting to enter this lifestyle). He describes all the planning that goes into the event and the activities that take place over the two days including speakers, vendors, field demonstrations, and lots of food and family activities. Tents are set up housing the themes covered at the event: Farmstead, Homemakers, Beekeeping, Homesteader, and Natural Resources.