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Sunday, April 24, 2011

Plow Days

One of my co-workers invited me to something he was helping with this past Saturday. It was called Plow Days and I guess it's done every Spring. There is a group of people who have teams of horses, and every Spring they gather and demonstrate the art of plowing fields the old fashioned way.
The public is invited to this, there are ponies available for kids to ride and they have a food booth to raise funds for 4H kids.

It was fun to watch these teams of horses working.


It takes a long time to do a whole field this way, one small lane at a time.


This man had to walk behind his plow - no seat on this one.





It was a reminder of how much work it used to be to get a field ready for planting.
Of course, those of you in Amish country still see this work going on!



This horse looks pretty classy for a hard days work, don't you think?

18 comments:

Unknown said...

That looks like real hard labor, but love to see the horses, they are huge.

Jean said...

I saw this in action frequently when we lived near Lititz. I also remember all the details about field work in the Little House in the Prairie books.

Karin said...

I remember it well - from the Little House on the Prairie shows! Never had opportunity in real life, but do know that one of my grandfathers did it this way.

We actually had the sod turning for one of our Shepherd's Care sites done with a team of horses pulling a plow!

;) said...

Lovely days... and time machine! ;)
Have a nice day

Momma Roar said...

That's a neat thing to do - I bet that is fun for the kids. I love community stuff like that!

I had tried to capture a picture of my Amish neighbors in the field a month ago - but it didn't turn out. :(

Cindy said...

I was thinking it reminded me of how the Amish plow the fields! How wonderful that you were able to go!

sara said...

I used to see this all the time when we lived in IN. Lots of hard work for sure!

Betty W said...

This is how my grandparents plowed their fields. But I never saw it in person, just from stories they told.
My brother in law collect those old plows, restores them and portrays them in his front yard.

Nancy said...

Sometimes, the old way teaches us many things, just not about plowing.

The horses are amazing -- I love those old work horses. Just beautiful!

Brooke said...

we have a hard enough time finding the time to hitch the disk to the tractor and plow :P

Shelly said...

This is a great post to remind us of how things use to be. Also, how to appreciate how the Amish still work like that. Love the pictures!

septembermom said...

That is a classy horse!! I would love to go to one of these exhibitions! I know that my kids would love it too. So much can be learned about human patience, work ethic and dedication when you think of how things used to get done.

Terri said...

Where was this? I know Shaelyn would have loved it. Let me know next year!

Sharon said...

That does sound like fun to watch.
I have never seen it done in person.
Thanks for stopping by.
Enjoy hearing from you.
Hugs

Pat said...

These pictures are dear to me, I have some of my dad when he was young walking behind a plow horse at his family farm near Lansing, Mi. Oh how he hated it! He said he got very tired of looking at the back side of the horse!!
I loved seeing those big work horses when we visited my grandparents. Thanks for the memories!

Raise Them Up said...

Those horses are beautiful. I used to love to see the horses and mules in the fields when we lived in Pennsylvania. Thanks for sharing the neat pictures!

Jenny said...

That horse is beautiful.

And it always astounds me to see how hard these men and women had to work in order to put food on the table. Now we have every modern convenience, and yet I'm pretty sure when it comes to complaining, we who buy food from air-conditioned supermarkets would take the prize.

Lori4squaremom said...

That is beautiful! Where we live in Central California, I hear all the time about the harmful effects to the environment of the dust that is stirred up when tractors till the fields.....I have a feeling that if it went back to the horse driven plow days, there wouldn't be many farms around anymore? God has given us the ability to do our work so much more efficiently, and it is amazing, but I have to wonder if we are using our "extra time" to His glory? Hmmmm, maybe another blog post :) Thanks Mari :)

And thank you for being a faithful reader, even in my down times on my blog :)