Draft Powered Farming

Teaching our Tennessee Walker to Ground Drive

Draft powered farming has fascinated us from the very beginning because it offered a truly sustainable solution to fossil fuel dependent cultivation and fertility needs in the market garden. 

In 2009, while visiting another CSA farm in the area we met Ken and his beautiful Shire horses giving hay wagon rides. Ken was a gracious mentor. From him Shane learned the basics of working with draft power. Our first garden was plowed with Shire horse power, and in 2012 we purchased our first team of Norwegian Fjords, Marta and Maj, and changed the layout of our vegetable gardens, planting in 400 ft rows for ease of cultivation. On the farm we used horses for garden work, harvesting, manure making and spreading, haying, and logging, not to mention countless rides on the stone boat, wagon, and forecart. Perhaps their biggest contribution thus far has been how much they have done for us personally, in invisible ways. Horses ground you. They are a tremendous gift for both farmer and farm, and well worth the daily chores and maintenance. Sadly, in 2015 Maj passed on, and Marta was sold.

In 2016 land on our current farm was cleared to make way for a pasture rejuvenation
project, bring the farm back to the way it was 50-60 years ago, able to welcome rotational grazing as well as more space for the market gardens. When "Lady Nugget Muffin" was gifted to the farm in December of 2020 it renewed a decade's long love affair with partnering with horses to work the land.

After a sojourn down in TX, to complete graduate course work, during which we had to sell most of the farm's livestock, we are now back on the farm working with a team of rescue horses from the Norwegian Fjord Horse Rescue Network. Frederik and Erling are two brothers, 18 and 19 years old. They have largely been left to themselves for many years, and when they came to us, their feet were in a bad way, with evidence of a history of at least one laminitic incident. They are currently on a serious diet and we are working to get Freddie a bit less tubby, and build up some muscle on Erling. We hope to use them for light garden cultivation, logging, and stoneboat work along with some riding/driving.

Fjords are uniquely suited to the small farm because of their agility, their lower feed needs, and their temperaments which are very steady and congenial.

Current Projects:

Rehabilitating Freddie and Erling: Two Drafthorses brought to us by the NFHRN

Fundraiser for a Work Harness and Collar

 Single Horse Cultivation equipment