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11/20/08, Canaan, OH - We got off to a little bit of a late start today, as I had to reshoe Deedee and fit the new harnesses.
Dale and his wife Fay really went all out to make me feel at home and provided tremendous assistance to the horses and I over the past few days. Dale is a retired school teacher and a true Cowboy. He raises cattle, sheep and horses on his farm and grazes several pieces of property in the surrounding area. He works his cattle and sheep from horseback with his dog and lariat to assist him.
Last night, just before sundown, Dale and I saddled up a couple of his horses and went for a 4 mile ride to check his cattle and fences. He likes to cover ground, so the whole ride was at either a lope or a quick trot. It was a great time. Dale’s wife Fay is a great cook and even delivered breakfast to me at the farm (to include a whole loaf of fresh backed bread (yum)!
Once we got underway, Dale drove a couple of miles ahead and directed traffic for me at a difficult intersection. I think his impromptu flags were good for either directing traffic or for intimidating drivers whom otherwise wouldn’t take him seriously.
The team and I drove about 7 miles down route 585 before I decided that with all of the “challenged” drivers I was seeing on the road, it was a good idea to find an alternative route. After a deranged truck driver almost drove head-on into a compact car while passing me, I turned off on route 604 west to intersect route 42.
We got about 5 miles down route 604 before calling it quits for the day. Tonight, we’re camped at the large dairy farm owned by James Sall in Canaan, OH. James milks about 430 head with a herd average well above 70 pounds per cow, per day. I was very impressed with his modern milking parlor. I was even more impressed with his wife’s chili. I’ll try to get some pictures of the Sall farm operation tomorrow.
The horses are decked out in their fancy blankets on a nice little piece of grass. They were still dreaming of their pastures today and their heart wasn’t really in their work. I suspect they’ll settle in tomorrow and go about the buisness of pulling the wagon.
I fixed the problem with the sink and tub drains, but I’m still operating from plastic jugs of water. The next three days are suppose to stay below freezing, so I have to hold off refilling the wagon water tank.
All in all it was a pretty good day!
P.S. If you haven’t noticed, I quit updating the purple box in the margin. If I change that every day, it requires me to update all 105 pages of this website. Even with a good internet signal, that requires about 15 minutes to down load the site every day.
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