Search Results for: cart horses

Today, Moise and his family began bringing their horse buggies and horses into the new barn. Tomorrow, they spread straw and hay. The horses seemed very content in their new stalls, plenty of hay and grain. It was dry, comfortable, and roomy. No bugs, no wind, no glaring sun, no rain.

This week, Moise is adding insulation to the downstairs all around the outer walls in preparation for the winter. Soon, goats and sheep will be joining the horses.

 

The barn was quiet, the space is well ventilated, a breeze came softly along the central walkway.

The stalls are beautiful, solid, and spacious. The troughs are full of hay and feed.

 

 

Harnesses

There are three carts in the barn now, they will be protected from the wind and cold and rain. They look like they very much belong there.

I very much enjoy seeing the barn come slowly to life.  It has dignity and presence..

Every day, there are more things here, more carts, harnesses, buckets, shovels. Hour by hour, the barn is becoming a living thing, an extension of the

I’ve lived with barns for 15 years now, and I love their ability to absorb and attract life. They speak to life and death in a way very few structures do.

The barn becomes a living thing, an organic extension of a barn. It soaks up all the history around it.

I never had a barn quite as big or well designed as this one, the American farmers who built mine were strapped, they didn’t have a small army to help them.

Many built their barns by themselves.

Their farms were simpler and seemed to grow out of the ground. They last a very long time until the sun and rain and snow and wind just melt them down into the ground.

Moise is very proud of his barn, it will change life for him and his family on the farm. It’s a beautiful thing, it’s wonderful to see animals in their eating their hay and grain so peacefully.

I need to ask him where the manure is going. I’m sure it will not go to waste.

Nothing does on his farm.

Moise has eleven horses on his farm; two are draft working horses, the others come from farms, horse racing grounds, and auctions.

At the beginning of Spring, he rented his neighbor’s former cow pasture, no longer used for cows. Whenever they are not working – four or five are working at a given time, sometimes none –  they are walked across the road and left to graze freely. There is enough grass for a herd of cows., his horses have it all to themselves.

There are two large water tanks set in the pasture.

The draft horses are used for plowing and hauling heavy loads of lumber or sacks of seed and concrete.

The other horses pull the carts and go to church, visit relatives, ride into town, take rides in the country, perform minor farm chores.

The Amish have a reputation for working their horses too hard and running awful puppy mills.

Mostly, these tales are relayed by animal rights activists, not known for their love of truth. People are always e-mailing me bragging about their heroic rescue of puppy mill dogs, but they don’t seem to care that Moise doesn’t have any or that the sins of others are not transferable to him.

Moise has rescued quite a few animals himself. But he never brags about it.

I’ve tried finding out more from some animal vets I met when writing about the New York Carriage Horses. Those I spoke with or e-mailed said they thought the Amish often worked their horses too hard but rarely in the realm of abuse.

They said working horses who work are very fortunate, healthwise.

I know that the Amish will shoot their horses if they can’t sell them when they get old. I don’t consider that abuse. Very few farmers in the world can afford to keep hungry horses in food and hay for years. I couldn’t.

And contrary to rumor, there are very few “preserves” that can take old and sick horses in for the rest of their lives.

Many thousands of horses are being taken to Canada and Mexico for meat, where they die harsh deaths. A shot to the head is far more humane than a slaughterhouse.

Feeding retired horses is just too expensive for farmers, who live on a skinny margin of income.

“They keep those horses healthy,” Greg Panzie, a veterinarian in Ohio told me, “they couldn’t operate if they didn’t.” In general, the farriers I’ve t walked to say the horses should have their hooves trimmed more often and by professionals, but they see no signs of neglect bordering on abuse.

I tried them but they do have a conflict of interest.

Local shelters have reported that some Amish families – especially in Ohio and Pennsylvania – run puppy mills, and they are generally not clean or humane.

Beyond those states, there are very few reports of puppy mills run by the Amish; there are none in the Amish community here. Moise disapproves of mistreating animals; I’ve never seen him do it.

There are hundreds in Appalachia and the South, where there are no Amish.

Moise went well out of his way to keep the dog Tina in the family after losing part of a leg and can’t work for long or go too fast. He and the family are very fond of her.

I would describe Moise’s relationship with his horses as professional, not cuddly or intimate. He never anthropomorphizes them and speaks in soft, usually German commands.

He is gentle on the reins, and the horses seem at ease with him – tails and heads up, shiny coats, clear eyes, brisk steps. They are instantly responsive to him, even as he issues commands I can’t even hear.

Most of the time, his horses are grazing in the big field across from his farm. Moise pays to rent the pasture so the horses can graze on fresh grass all Spring and summer. He is growing his own hay to feed them in the winter.

Moise doesn’t take the horses out in extreme heat, and if they are riding on hills, he often stops to “let them catch their breath.” I can say with confidence there are no abusers in the family.

There are no coddlers either.  The horses are essential to the survival of the farm. A sick horse could be catastrophic; they keep them healthy.

Everyone in that family works, and most of the time. Still, he went way out of his way to give his horses fresh pasture grass whenever they are not working.

I know very few horses around here who are treated that well.

I wanted to share this photo to counter some of the suggestions that the Amish are all brutal animal owners who care nothing about their animals.

Those are not abused horses in the photo.

 

It’s never a good idea to give up on humanity; there is so much good in many people.

Last week, I wrote about receiving some worried messages from local people asking me to talk to Moise about brighter and more colorful illuminations for the Amish buggies, especially at night.

We were stuck on what to do about it. I think we’ve figured it out; I think we have a good solution in sight.

While Moise took a rigid position on the cart – there was nothing else he could do – I also learned from him to be patient and thoughtful, that there is always some way to find common ground somewhere in the middle.

Patience and humility.

In their letters to me, most people were acting in good faith; they were sincerely worried about the safety of Moise’s family. Others feared for their own safety.  Horse buggies have not been seen around my town for generations.

The Amish have been fighting these battles for centuries. They are still around and thriving suggested to me that they often give and bend while never breaking.

That gave me encouragement and promise. The goal is to keep talking until we get there.

The cart issue is genuine. You have one culture willing to take enormous risks on behalf of their faith pitted against a culture that has lost faith and isn’t willing to tolerate any risks at all.

Horses have been on the roads here as long as humans lived here.  They are essential to the Amish way of life.

To me, the answer lies in sharing the roads tolerantly and safely; neither side has to lose.

There are many winding roads around here with sharp curves; we are too familiar with night-time collisions, especially in winter and summer when too many people drink too much alcohol.

And it’s been a very long time since people have seen horses and buggies riding around on Main Street five times a day. That will take getting used to.

The people writing to me said the carts were difficult to see at night, especially in the rain or fog or without moonlight. That was the main issue.

Some people said they believed the problem was reckless drivers; others said the carts were too dark to see clearly, especially at high speeds and winding country roads.

Some people told me they were afraid to drive at night.

Even the smallest conflicts become bigger in America; people use social media to gather support and turn to steel. Grievance is the American story; nothing too sacred to fight about, nothing too important to resolve.

We fight so often, and so bitterly it is easy to forget what we are fighting about.

The Amish don’t play that game; they listen and learn and think. They don’t go on social media to call people names and enrage their friends and supporters.

Moise listened to me, but I could see him tightening up on this issue; he has been dealing with it for years.

He explained that the cart was a sacred Amish symbol, and he is “Old Amish,” the most conservative Amish sect. As an elder, he is charged with keeping sacred Amish traditions intact.

He said he had done everything the faith would allow him to do.

The carts carry kerosene lamps at night and have four strips of reflector tape. We talked for an hour or so, but he said he thought it was pointless for me to search for new ideas or projects that might make both sides happy.

The carts of the Old Amish must always signal a plain, humble and unpretentious people. No fancy lights or bright colors. That is their identity.

We agreed that we would go out one night and ride together and look at the carts from behind. I took that as an opening, but I couldn’t see a way through his passion and his new neighbor’s anxiety.

I expected a long haul.

The carts are sacred symbols to Moise and many Amish. For them, that transcends almost every other consideration, something it is difficult for outsiders to comprehend.

I tried two or three ideas on Moise but wasn’t getting anywhere.

But in many ways, my blog is my mother now; she always comes through for me; she is always watching and trying to help.

This week, I got a message from Sue in Canada. “I’m not sure if it is helpful or not,” she wrote, “but I thought I’d mention that there is a product – ghost stripes – that my husband has applied to black police cars here in Canada. The stripes are completely invisible in the daytime but light up at night when the headlights shine on them. It’s an adhesive/tape-like product. During the daytime, the appearance of the buggies would not change.”

It sure is helpful.  A bell went off in my head; I said I was very interested; please send more details.

And she did.

Moise is passionate about his carts and said he couldn’t accept colors or ornaments. But a strip that is invisible in daylight and can shine brightly at night in car lights might get around his objections or at least some of them.

Moise is a straightforward man; there is no beating around the bush with him in him. In our dealings, we are direct with one another.

I admit to being somewhat anxious about raising this again. In my life, people often exploded when I did that; it’s hard to believe that couldn’t happen with him.

He is, after all, a prince in a Patriarchy. He is not used to being challenged, I imagine.

I was in a good negotiating position today; I had just spent hours helping him and Barbara order boxes and pans for their pies (they’re trying some new sizes).

And this is how the Amish are different. I was negotiating, thinking in terms of winning or losing. He was following a beloved faith and what he believes to be the will of God.

I thought of it as winning or losing. That was how it always was for me, in my life and work. He was in a completely different place.

Quite a difference.

My search for the right donut and pie boxes and pans was rough; I had to go to different websites and fight hard to avoid shipping fees, figure out measurements, the cost of making donuts and pies. These are not things I am normally good at.

I succeeded. I got small pans, small boxes, and boxes for Barbara’s brother, all at good prices. Free shipping all down the line.

I sat down in the kitchen and explained what I had ordered, and Moise was pleased, so was Barbara, who is anxious to make smaller pies.

Moise was also pleased because someone made a beautiful maple chair just for him, with a horse and cart carved into the back, and delivered it to the farm.

He was also pleased because his new barn was staked out with the help of a town planning official. All the pastures were now plowed. Donuts and pies were selling like mad, so was lumber.

He was happy with the day; he had accomplished a lot.

Moise looked content, somewhat worn.  His clothes were covered in dust and sweat stains.

For the first time, he even joked about trying to lie down for an hour or so. But, of course, he didn’t do it.

I whipped out the before/after photos Sue had just sent me from Canada (some of the new 3M visibility “ghost” tapes are on the way.) They showed police cars in daylight and the same cars at night. The difference was startling.

Moise listened to my pitch carefully and puffed on his corncob pipe, and rocked back and forth in his chair; soon, he was almost lost in a cloud of smoke. He was thinking, not stiffening.

He looked at the photos, which supported Sue’s claims and brought them to vivid life.

I had pressed him on the safety issue the first time I had done that in our friendship. So far, he hadn’t yielded an inch. He insisted there wasn’t much point in talking about it.

Amish elders do not have a reputation for being talked into or out of things of great spiritual significance.

But to be honest, I had come to see that they didn’t get angry, hold grudges, punish people for speaking their minds.  That was my family, not this family.

I knew pushing the issue would be all right. We weren’t in Washington.

“Hey Moise, let me just mention something to you if I might,” I said after I told him what I had found about the pie boxes and tins.

He looked up at me, curious, and nodded. We do trust each other; I can feel that. He sensed I had something important to say.s

I told him about Sue’s message to me and the new 3M illumination tape. I told him the cart would not look different in any way, except that at night the illumination tape would be very bright and much more visible than the four strips he is using now.

I showed him the four photographs I had asked Sue to send me that showed the police cars in the day and then again in the night. The strips were not visible at all in daylight; they really jumped out at night.

He could add more strips to greater effect; they would be completely invisible in the daytime. There was more puffing, but more nodding as well.

This, I thought, could be it.

As the clouds of smoke gathered around him – I so wish I could have gotten a picture of him in that smoke cloud in front of the sun streaming through the window – I could feel he was interested in this new product.

Moise didn’t say anything right away, but he didn’t shut down the conversation, as he did before.

This could be a good thing, Moise, I added. It would set your friends in the town at rest a bit – Moise already has many more friends in town than I do –  and maybe keep some people from getting hurt.

It’s almost summer, I said, and people will start pouring through here on the way to Lake George and the Adirondacks. It would sure make me easier, I said.

I noticed that his children were listening carefully to every word of our conversation. And I know that Moise and the Amish pride themselves on working things out if at all possible.

I also know how much Moise and Barbara love their children.

Then I just waited; I showed him the pictures again. (Sue is sending me some tapes, but I’m trying to get hold of some right now.) I’m not good at waiting.

So far, I’ve learned that 3 M and Avery manufacture the reflective tape.

It is black all day, the same color as the cart. 3 M’s product reflects white, Avery’s reflects gold.

“I’d be interested in that,” he said finally. I wanted to shout but didn’t.

When I get hold of a tape,  Moise has agreed to a demo with one of his carts. It’s not yet revolved, but I have a good feeling about it. I’m hopeful we can do it.

Thanks so much, Sue, for caring. You may just have saved some lives.