Re: Deeper Than a Mud Puddle pt. 3

Today several folks are working in our commons area. We grow the community's broad-acre food and energy crops here. It is the same thing we were doing last week; it is the same thing we will be doing next week. The term "job security" comes to mind, but that is an old notion that has gone out of fashion with all that has happened in recent times.

I'm on the back of an old binder cutting oats with one of our Percheron mares, Naka, and one of our new Belgians. Naka and her sister, Ima, were our original team. We have been pairing them up with the new horses to help in training. Whenever the youngster is feeling a bit persnickety the old girl is there to help keep her in line. Naka is an old pro. She has done this more times than I can count. Mostly, I just try to stay out of the way and let her do her thing.



We'll come along next with the threshers we converted to run on vegetable oil and finally bale with the horse powered baler that one of the former engineers in the community designed and put together for us. We have found that using a lot of this equipment is more of an art than a science and keeping it up and running is a full time job. Fortunately, there are several mechanically inclined folks living here that are always coming up with new inventions or ways to make things work better. One of them just installed a horse-powered line shaft to run our mill and seed press. Another is working on adapting it to some old wind generator parts for charging batteries to run our shop lighting. I think a lot of these technical types have rediscovered their creative sides after living here for a while.

The community has been busy this week with visitors. Someone brought word of gas shortages in this place or that - same old, same old. There isn't much time to dwell as gardens are in full swing and the village has several projects going on. Our visitor flow is usually high this time of year but every year it seems to decrease a little as it gets harder for people to get here, both from the shortages and the ever deteriorating roads. Most are anxious to get hands-on experience and we have no problem finding a place for them to help out. One of the folks visiting is an old friend and has quite a bit of experience driving horses. With her help we are getting a lot done. I haven't seen her in a long time and I pull the team along side to let the horses rest and do some catching up. Tweet