His breed, well, half of it, is Ardennes: one of the most ancient breeds of draft horse whose history dates back to Ancient Rome. Ardennes have been used extensively for draft work for centuries. Not that Dylan has actually done any himself but I have often wondered whether it is this ancient connection that explains the depth in his gaze. He does have a calm, sensible outlook on life and he does love to work hard, so perhaps he will embrace this new challenge I’m planning to ask of him. 

 

It all started with the romantic idea of ploughing with him. I have been excited and concerned with this idea in equal measures. I don’t know how to plough, I don’t own a plough and it looks really difficult! But whilst discussing this with my neighbouring arable farmer, Alastair, he believed that the clay on our land is so compacted that I would need to plough it at least twice with a tractor first to give Dylan a chance of successfully pulling a plough through the soil. This seems a bit pointless to me and certainly wouldn’t reduce my use of fossil fuels. Alastair then went onto say ‘what you could do is level it afterwards with a chain harrow; you could use your horse for that’. My face lit up at this idea as this seemed like a plausible and manageable place to start.  

 

A few days later I spoke to Ted, who claims to have had a go at doing ‘everything you can do with a horse’. He told me I need to start with long reining, to get him really responsive, obedient, accurate and listening to me from the ground. (And, it occurs to me, fitter as he’s spent the last 4 months in a field eating grass). So this week I have begun long-reining and the next step is to put up a course of cones to manoeuvre around to get more accurate at controlling our pace and direction. Then Ted will measure him up for a collar so he can lean into it as he pulls the harrow, or any piece of equipment, across the ground. 

 

 

Apparently, it takes a whole day to cultivate half an acre of land, so this seems like a very sensible question! I am planning on planting just a few acres of beans and barley in the spring but even this small amount will take several days to accomplish by horse. I am reminded by the story of the people of Ladak (Little Tibet) told by Helena Norberg Hodge in her book, Ancient Futures. The farmers there measure the size of their land by how long it takes to cultivate it (by yak rather than by horse). When you ask a Ladaki how much land they have, (s)he responds with “3 days” or “2 days”. No one had more land than 5 days as that would be too much to successfully cultivate in one season. I rather like this way of measuring land size. 

 

Anyway, back to why this seems like a good idea. The main thing is the slowing down. The western world’s pace of life, the information overload and our withering attention span is all unnervingly fast nowadays. I find it as hard as anyone not to get pulled along into the frenzy of modern life, despite my awareness of how it negatively impacts my quality of life. So to have a reason to really slow down, really connecting to the soil beneath my feet, immersed in the nature around and within me, seems rather appealing. To appreciate and honour our ancestors and what they had to do, in what was their norm, will be insightful and I predict, humbling. To not forget the skills learned by our forefathers and to ensure that they are passed down, alongside numerous other traditional skills, to younger generations seems important, maybe even crucial. It also seems like a good idea to work towards reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. Our whole economy is reliant on fossil fuels and everything we do depends on it. I quite like the sense of freedom I feel if I can be even slightly more capable of doing something without it. One small step in the right direction is a good step to make. 

 

Meanwhile I had better see if I can find myself a cheap chain harrow, small enough to be pulled by my dear friend Dylan in a few months’ time.