O/T How Many of you worked mules or horses as a kid. ?

huntingreen2day · Nov 18, 2008

I did. Started at the age of 9 plowing tobacco. Also spent a lot of time riding a mule pulled mower. we would load an old steel wheel wagon up with the plows and our lunch and move from farm to farm. Middle TN in the 1950s.

AB · Nov 19, 2008

Had two teams at our plow days last weekend.

Anonymous-0 · Nov 19, 2008

Always best to watch the road whilst driving!

Fergienewbee · Nov 19, 2008

I love draft horses. My grandfather farmed with horses all his life. He died in '54 when I was 7. I only have bits and pieces of memories. He sported a bushy mustash and ate everything with a wide-bladed knife. Wish I could have known him longer.

Larry in Michigan

Anonymous-0 · Nov 19, 2008

I did too. Always had 3 mules for 22 acres of flu cured tobacco. Tried a couple of horses but they couldn't take the heat like the mules. Daddy didn't have a picup truck and we rented 3 farms beside ours and he would load the cultivators or turning plows in the trunk of a 55 Ford car and haul the plows to the fields and we'd ride the mules. Daddy heard me cuss for the first time when I was 12 years old when I was laying by tobacco with a mule. I bought a new 140 Farmall when I was 16. Paid $3,050 for it in 1968. I could handle more than half the crop with the 140. I bought that tractor before I owned a car. Plowing with mules build charater. LOL LOL

Anonymous-0 · Nov 19, 2008

I did. the farmers next door had teams. i would help harness and i would drive teams on easy jobs, great times . i still enjoy watching teams working.we have a plow day every year near us for teams only. ralph

JDknut · Nov 19, 2008

Nice pix of some fine animals. thanks

Stan - Florida · Nov 19, 2008

We had Percheron horses when I was a kid. I drove them from about 1945 to 1956 when Dad sold them. As I got older I used a slip scoop to move dirt, and we once broke a young mare to a hay mower...the noisiest thing on the farm at that time.

Good times? Not really, as I would rather drive the tractor, but Dad loved his horses and was very particular about how they got cared for.

When I was about 15 we came in for dinner one day and I just looped the lines over the hames. He told me to tie them up like he had taught me and I said, "No". Then he doubled the lines up a couple of times and used them on me. Then I tied the lines up and we ate dinner.

Stan (grew up in Indiana)

thurlow · Nov 19, 2008

My Dad kept a team of mules for several years after we had tractors. In the mid-50s, (I was 10 or 12) I was 'laying-by' cotton with a single mule and a hill-sweep. Boy on a neighboring farm who was a year younger than me was riding a mule home at lunch; fell off and got tangled in the harness. The mule 'ran away' and he was drug to death; my mother was one of the first ones on the scene. That ended my mule-plowing and the mules were sold the next year.

Wilson · Nov 19, 2008

Never worked with horses or mules always worked for myself till teaching agricultural mech for a while The principal was a jacka[[. Does this count??????????

NEKS · Nov 19, 2008

Can not ever remembering driving the team, do remember leading one while dad led the other from the water tank to the barn.

IaGary · Nov 19, 2008

And you never called social services Stan.

How in the world did you ever survive to live to be retirement age?

~})

Gary

olgentdc · Nov 19, 2008

Back in 67, New Neighbors from Burkesville Ky , Came to Souther In, They Had OL Red that We shared and Loved and Learned about life with ,,,,,,cultivated ,Tobacco , Potatoes ect,, with dads old Strwberry Cultivator,, I was all of 10 yrs old . RED was Old , But golly he was good one , Handled like a caddilac , Used him about 3 yrs , Then he got pneumonia and Died in the winter of 70.............

Anonymous-0 · Nov 19, 2008

On leave from the Navy back in the 60's I drove over to see my cousin, He was in the field plowing with a mule and the only thing he was wearing was a long sleeve shirt. No shoes no nothing. Never laughed so hard in my life.

HENRY E NC · Nov 19, 2008

I was using horses in the 30's and even after we got our 41 A farmall. WE did all our farming with 3 horses, one always left to rest.I learned to plow, harrow with a stone boat, mow hay, pull hay wagon while the older men pitched hay, pull a sprayer for the orchards ( sat on top the sprayer and when iit was time to mmove would get a shot from the spray gun from the guys behind. Lead Arsenate spray. Kept horses until we got the M in 46. Henry

Stan - Florida · Nov 19, 2008

By the time Social Services was invented I was too old to file child abuse charges. That is the only time I remember getting whipped, but there must have been more.

Thanks for the reply,

Stan

SuperHank · Nov 19, 2008

In N. Alabama the piedmont farms had enough slope to them that many farmers used mules. Uncle Joe had a matched pair and I got to follow them around but truth is I never actually worked them. This was in 55 or 56. A neighbor kid was working around his family farm and a mule kicked him in the head. He never recovered fully but his family took care of him. I always gave horses mules and bulls a great deal of respect after those days.

JakeE · Nov 19, 2008

we had a farm in north dakota in the early 50's around 1500 ackers and ran about 200 cattle we did all the haying with a team of horses,very gentle set of old wore out clydesdales pulled McCormick deering hay equipment, and hauled it all home put it in the mow with a set of slinges.there names were dave and taff, the farmall M was allways busy pulling the john deere 12-A combine at harvest time,we finally got a very used T0-20 fergeson for the small chores.

Dean Barker · Nov 19, 2008

I drove a team of horses on a two wheeled cart for the hay fork to pull loose hay into the barn.
I'm trying to remember when this was and how old I was. Back in the 40's for sure.

Mike (WA) · Nov 19, 2008

One of my first recollections was watching Dad plow the garden with his Percheron team, Tom and Jerry. That was probably about '51. I think he sold them later that year, to come up with part of the money to buy a used 8N Ford. I've driven horses, but never worked them.

Anonymous-0 · Nov 19, 2008

I remember in the late 40's when dad sold his last team of horses.
He was one happy man.
Ken

gitrib · Nov 19, 2008

Yep! I can remember driving three horses on a sulcky when I was about 13 yrs. old in in 1942, Dad had started me cultivating corn when I was 9 or 10 with a single row cultivator and team. Guess it never hurt me and as I got older I went to bed and didn't go out getting in trouble. gitrib

pat sublett · Nov 19, 2008

My brother made a crop of peanuts (about 40 acers) with a team of Jacks, when I was about 6. We got a new 2N after that. I plowed my Mothers garden lots of times with an old paint mare

Crem · Nov 19, 2008

I used to ride the mule when dad would cultivate the garden. I would steer it and he could concentrate on the cultivator which had two handles on the end. When we were finished I would have two pants legs that were wet with mule sweat boy did that stink.

Eric SEI · Nov 19, 2008

My Mom (75) says she remembers horses on the farm but she cannot remember them ever being used. But does remember them being sold.

rodgernbama · Nov 19, 2008

My grandfather used to let me plow the middles but I wasn't big enough to keep the plow up by myself. He'd have to walk along beside to keep it from falling over. This was in the early 60's.

Mike Henry · Nov 20, 2008

Im 42 and I have drove horses.Mostly belgians and perchon. My gr.grandpa and grandpa as well as 2 uncles pull drafts as a hobby. To get them in shape to pull I have ridden many peices of equipment digging many an acre. We did have tractor but it sat alot or did work if we were triing to beat the weather. this was in 70s and 80s. Uncle does pull still but uses other methods to get the muscle that is needed to pull. Not the same if you ask me. He dont have as many trophies as the senior members of the family either.

O/T How Many of you worked mules or horses as a kid. ?

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