We initially envisioned this farm running with horse power alone.
Meaning, we were planning on having a pair of big percheron draft horses for all our pasture management – think tilling, planting, mowing, logging – and much of the daily work on the farm.
But when the moment finally came and we had the cash on hand to buy the team of horses or go in the opposite direction and make a down payment on a tractor, we came to the most logical conclusion…
We bought the horses! Kidding, we bought the tractor. The Tractor!
We were just getting started and our budget was extraordinarily tight. And we just couldn’t gamble any more than we had to with animals that could get sick or injured.
Affecting this decision was also the fact that even though Greg trained on a horse-powered farm the year before (see the photo above!), we didn’t know enough to feel assured that we could make draft horse farming work on our rocky, stubbly land.
We’ve never really regretted that decision. Having a powerful tool that does what you need it to with just a simple turn of a key, was the safer bet. But that being said, our tractor broke recently in a pretty serious way and I’m starting to second guess ourselves.
We can’t say what’s happened exactly. All I know is that we’ve taken excellent care of it and never skipped out on any of the routine maintenance.
And yet, a part of the transmission that’s supposed to be rock solid, encased in steel, and last 20+ years cracked and some of the gears deep within the machine have broken into little pieces.
Oh and it gets worse. The solution to fix whatever’s happened is stumping the team at the tractor repair shop! They’ve been working on our big blue hunk of metal for 3 whole weeks now and still haven’t figured out how to get it running smoothly again!
In this moment, I’ve found myself wondering what a comparable problem would be if we’d gambled and gone with the horses instead. Maybe a hoof infection… I can imagine us asking for a recovery timeline right about now and the vet replying sternly, “It’ll take however long it takes…”
I’ll keep that in mind and hope for good news soon. In the meantime, we’re very grateful to our neighbors for letting us borrow their tractor. We couldn’t keep the farm running without it!
Your Farmers,
Jenney & Greg
PS – It’s a FRESH PORK week and we have a full supply of our organic and pasture raised meats at the Farm Store this weekend. Order ahead HERE.