You might think that vegetable farmers in New Hampshire would have only one thing on their minds this time of year: vegetables. But no! What we're thinking about instead is: horses!
We have a new horse on the place, which is exciting news for our little farm, for us farmers, and for our three draft horses: Belgians Molly and Moon, and black Percheron Ben, are 22, 23, and 18, respectively. Molly, our super-peppy horse, is beginning to be worn out after a long hot day of summer haying, and Moon has believed he should be in full retirement for some time now, and Ben, our baby, born right here on the farm, is no longer a spring chicken himself.
We started putting out new horse feelers a while ago, at the end of last season, calling the horse people we knew, checking out lists on the computer. My fellow thought of going to an auction in the spring, but I didn't like the idea much. Auctions are very stressful, I find, on the animals and on the bidders, and you're never quite sure if what you end up with is going to be quite the same as what you've bid on.
“I'm not going to jump at the first one I see,” my fellow reassured me.
“No?” I said.
“I mean, I know I'm a jumper, and all,” he went on.
“You sure are a jumper,” I laughed, and he proved his jumping mettle that very day by finding a fine team of Percherons on the Internet, eight and ten years old. He was ready to race off.
“But wait!” I said. “We only have three stalls, and then a fourth sort of stall! We have three horses already! We can't get a team! Think of all that hay we'll need!'”
“Oh, yeah,” he said.
“Let's keep looking,” I suggested. “We're not in a hurry. Couldn't we get along with our three again this season, if we planned it well? You know, had the garden sections ready right on time, so there's no desperate knee-high quack grass plowing in blazingly hot July, that kind of thing?”
“Well, yeah, I guess,” said my fellow, looking sadly at his team of Percherons disappearing from the computer screen.
Luckily, the vegetables began to loom ever larger in our minds, and the idea of a new horse settled down to a gentle simmer. I made a gentle simmer horse prayer: “Oh, horse that is ready to come to us, we are ready for you: we have nice company for you, good work, good grass, and we would love someone sound and kind and steady and a little younger to come to us.”
And then we got the call. It was from a family we knew and trusted. They had five horses, which was too many. They had a nice American Brabant/American Belgian cross that they might sell, to a good home. He was a little older than we planned, at 16, but he was very experienced on farm machinery. Did we want to come look at him?
Yes, we did. What fun to drive up to northern Vermont, after not going anywhere for weeks because of the virus. What fun to see the sheep and chickens and the five horses and two dogs and our old friend and her family! What fun to see Clyde, quiet and kind-eyed, harnessed up and spreading compost with his team mate!
“We're just trying to get a little work done, in case you want him,” our friend laughed.
It was the perfect introduction. Clyde was big, beautiful, calm, and steady. My fellow took a turn driving the team and spreader, while I talked to our friend. She told me horse stories, about how they had tried selling another horse, and he was mistreated, and they brought him back home. They wanted a good home for Clyde, and they would always take him back if it didn't work out. My fellow came back glowing from his drive, and I was glowing from my conversation. We asked all our horse-buying questions, from feed to farrier work, from stalls to stamina. Our friends ended with, “Just let us know. You can think about him.”
My fellow and I walked over to our car, talking, and for once we were both jumping at the same time. We walked back, check in hand. Suddenly our brains were more full of horses than vegetables!
Who was this new being? What would he like? What would he worry about? What would he think about our horses, and what would they think about him?
It took ten days to arrange a time to borrow a truck and trailer. Then our new horse came to his new home, and everybody jumped: the horses, the farmers, even the very vegetables! But nice gentle jumps they were, just the kind oldish farmers and oldish horses and newish vegetables appreciate this hopping and jumping time of year.
Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, June 3-9, 2020