Welcome to the October Newsletter!

Dear newsletter readers,

October was a very special month for DAPNet, as we held our annual Field Days at Shelburne Farms in Vermont at the beginning of the month.

As always, this event made us sweat, cry, and laugh. Our project manager, Ivy Pagliari, put in an incredible number of hours to make sure every little detail was taken care of.  Maggie and I helped Ivy along, while Maggie was also working on other projects, including preparing for the videos our videographer would be filming during the event and supporting her throughout the weekend. I was getting ready to represent DAPNet at the Common Ground Fair, which turned out to be one of the most fun fairs I’ve attended in a long time. The organizing team was so inspiring and welcoming, and we were amazed by how warmly we were received. We also had the chance to meet some wonderful teamsters!

At our Field Days, we see more and more young teamsters attending every year, and we couldn’t be prouder of Cindy Nickerson and Ariana Auger for making this magic happen.

On Saturday, I left the woods to hand my horse Fred over to Maggie and Lara so they could give wagon rides. As I turned onto the road heading back toward the main event, I witnessed something that brought tears to my eyes.

Jared Woodcock, Ada (a Standardbred mare), Fred (a Belgian-Percheron gelding), and I came across all the young teamsters from the youth program. There were little teams of calves, horses, a miniature horse, and a mule, all driven by a group of young people on their way to bring logs out of the woods.

I could hardly believe my eyes. It was one of the most beautiful and promising things I had seen all weekend.  The future of draft animal power is in good hands, and I couldn’t have been happier to witness it.

So many other wonderful things happened that weekend! One of them was Lisa McCrory’s beautiful and emotional speech celebrating 15 years since DAPNet’s incorporation. We also had two tintype photographers, Jocelyne Zwygart and John Morgan, capturing the event in a way that will help us remember it for the next (250?) years to come.

We welcomed Tillers International, Rob Collins, the Timber Framers Guild, and so many other wonderful people. We had an incredible lineup of presenters, too! Of course, I can’t speak to every moment or every person present, since I could only be in one place at a time. But everywhere I went, I heard wonderful things about the presenters, the attendees, and the event as a whole. It made me so proud to hear how much everyone was enjoying themselves.

At one point, I looked out at the crowd and thought about how lucky I was to be part of this community.

My way back home, through the border, was full of tears and I could feel my heart aching from the separation from all of you. I love this community so deeply.

I hope you enjoy this newsletter with articles from Barbara Corson and Becky Howell.

Daphné

Looking Back

By: Barbara Corson

Hello Draft Animal Friends,

Thanks for this opportunity to communicate with you via the newsletter. 

I’ve been a member of the DAPNet community since I had a home computer, around 2011, if I remember right.  But my interest in draft animals and “old timey” skills goes back further than that! 

I was born in 1956 which is one of the first years that tractors outnumbered work horses on American farms.  Also my home town is near several large Plain (Amish and Mennonite) communities where horses and mules are standard, so I can’t remember a time when draft animals weren’t a part of my life in one way or another. 

We lived in a rural area and were part of a farm community although my parents didn’t farm for a living.  (My dad was the town doctor, and my mother was a nurse and homemaker)  

Nature and history were important subjects in my family and books like Farmer Boy  gave me an abiding interest in what I called “olden times”, by which I meant times when animals and neighbors were more important than petroleum and electricity.  

Because my father was a physician, and because I loved animals and being outdoors, I guess it’s not surprising I decided I wanted to be a large animal veterinarian.   In my daydreams I looked forward to helping small farmers and their animals as part of a community.  Like this photo below.

This painting (in the public domain) is called A Visit from the Veterinarian and it shows a vet feeling the sick cow’s ears, while the cow’s family and community look on anxiously.  You can tell the cow is important to them. 

It seems like this kind of community doesn’t exist now.  When I graduated from vet school in 1989, small farm numbers were in free fall.  There were still some small, diversified farms in my area, but they were under increasing economic pressure to specialize and “get big or get out”.    Often the farmers felt they couldn’t afford to treat their animals, and I felt like I wasn’t able to help them or their animals much.   

After working as a vet “in the field” for 5 challenging years, I went into the specialty of pathology (“dead animal medicine”) and got a job at a veterinary diagnostic lab in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  This was an important decision for me for a couple of reasons: 

1. I was happier because the animals I worked on weren’t suffering anymore, 

2. By examining them, I could at least give the farmer some definitive answers on the cause of death, and how to treat any other cases on the farm.  

3. The lab was state funded, so the tests we did were very affordable. 

4. I had a regular schedule and salary that allowed me to pursue hobbies. 

I had a lot of interests, which probably explains why I never accomplished much in any particular field. Looking back, I can now see that what linked all the hobbies was an interest in the connection between humans and the “natural world”,  which of course includes draft animals and regenerative, non-technological farming.  My job also gave me the opportunity to travel and see how different people managed their farms and livestock.   It also allowed me to have my own livestock, and I used them as “agrarian ambassadors” by taking them to local venues and historic sites.

After about 20 years of work in pathology,  the budget of the lab where I worked changed drastically and we had to start charging what I thought were exorbitant fees for post-mortem exams.  I no longer felt like I was able to help farmers or their animals much, so I retired from my pathology job and instead took a full-time live-in job as a “historic farmer” at a 300 year old farm near Philadelphia. My goal was to help small farmers by educating consumers about agriculture.   (You may well ask : “how did that work out?”)    I was there for 5 interesting and challenging years. 

In 2017 I moved back to my hometown to help my siblings care for our father in his last illness.  

Since then I have been learning the art of silvopasture: managing our family milk cow and other livestock on 12 partially wooded acres, with the goal of benefiting the land, plants and animals (including me). 

Sometimes I feel discouraged about the state of the world, but the folks in DAPNet continue to be an inspiration to me.  

The Shire of Illinois, Greetings from the Prairie

By: Becky Howell

Greetings from the windswept corn prairie! I was asked to write a short article introducing us and what we are getting up to on our small farm in Central Illinois. 

We (Adam, Becky, horses, dog, chickens, sheep) are first and only generation farmers, we bought in 2020 and built The Shire of Illinois, LLC from the ground up in a cornfield.

The Shire is 42 acres of clay to clay loam with a few sand strips and a surprising amount of fist sized rocks of all sorts as part of a glacial outwash. We’ve added a pond, repaired the riparian water ways, double tithed wild space, and restored prairie. We had plans for a holistic retreat and education space that I could bring close to three decades of wellness therapies, experimental farming solutions, and a background in environmental toxicology together.

Since then the county, insurance, and other bureaucratic vagaries have dumped us squarely into the production end of small scale farming. We were already saddled (if you’ll pardon the pun) with several ‘nonproductive’ horses and a vague dream of doing ‘some kind of draft thing.’ I knew my grandfather had farmed with his grandpa’s Belgian mules… and The Shire is an homage to him and contrary farming in general. 

We are attempting to view wellness through good farming and good farming through wellness, hoping to hold hands with both ideals intact. Draft work seems to fit the ethos and there is a neatness of closed loop systems… although that has eluded us to date. 

Currently we sell our surplus hay and invested heavily into a hoop house this year to add storage capacity. In 2021 we planted a sixty tree, mixed fruit orchard and 1 acre of cane fruits. While shopping around our fruit this past year, I accidentally picked up a couple of restaurant contracts for foraged foods as well.

This past spring was our first successful, partnered, plant starts sale, specifically chosen for climate resilience and reduced inputs while surviving what Central Illinois has become. 

This next year we are adding production and selection of high content allicin garlic, a double red organic corn that we might bag and sell as seed corn, and a few tomato varieties for canning amounts. I’d also really like to try a quarter acre of wheat but time is sprinting by! We will likely keep our CSA to the same 5 households. 

This past year we supplied flowers to our first wedding. I was expecting Bridezilla, but I actually loved it! Focusing on the growing and then hand off the responsibility is the ticket. Next year the plan is to grow flowers for five super local weddings with no fossil fuels used for shipping or cooling, and we will accept back any vegetative material for composting.

Next year we are planning on a farmstand and aiming for 1-2 markets per month. I’d also dearly like to continue to expand the medicinal herbs. While I am excited about all of those things, the climate resilience and soil remediation work is my obsession. We are building an 84 foot deep barrier between us and the surrounding row crop farms. Each piece reduces industrial farm drift and run off, and with some fermented applications, we are seeing about an 80 percent reduction in load. I think with some tweaks we can get that mitigation percentage higher.

We are working with another two farms on a core list of 12 crops that perform with minimal to no inputs, withstand drought, desiccating winds, flooding, and pest pressure. We have had some soaring successes and absolute fall-on-my-face-in-front-of-everyone failures. Farming definitely keeps you humble and either obsessed or stoic. 

I would say in all honesty, getting going (let alone competent) with draftwork has been the biggest struggle. Central Illinois does not have ready mentors… and the local-ish Plain Folk find my attempts laughably old-fashioned as I want to stay small and agile. 

We have 1.5 draft horses that sort of work singly, one I trained, and it seems I’ve been in search of a good beginning team for forever. At this point, I have a good selection of gear (literally buying the cart before the horse) including a rare Chattanooga Disc Plow.

We want to hear from you!  If you attended Field Days please take a moment and fill out the evaluation form linked below !

Classifieds

Committee Updates

Events

Events committee would like to thank everyone who participated this past weekend; whether that was being a part of the planning efforts, attending Field Days,  those who brought their animals, those who taught a workshop or intensive, those who volunteered their time and importantly, our venue host Shelburne Farms and our beloved sponsors!!  We couldn't have done it or been successful without each and every one of you! 

Events Calendar

Have a draft animal related event you’d like to see on this calendar? Fill out our Events Submission Form and our volunteers will add your event to our calendar! 

Rotational Grazing for Horses

Oct. 8, 2026, 1-3PM at Wild Carrot Farm, 118 Fairly Wild Way, Brattleboro VT.

Join UVM Extension service grazing specialists Amber Reed and Jascha Pick at Wild Carrot Farm for a workshop on rotational horse grazing. Covered topics include:

- Pasture Management
- Rotational grazing techniques
- Horse grazing nutrition
- and more.
Registration is required for this event. Please email gregg.wcnrcd@gmail.com to register.

Agricultural Work with Draft Cattle / Landwirtschaftliches Arbeiten mit Zugrindern

October 11, 10:00 a.m. to approximately 4:00 p.m. at the Center for Draft Cattle Research in Lorsch, Germany.

Draft cattle can be used in a variety of ways in agriculture. Whether in arable farming, grassland management, or fruit growing, cattle can find suitable tasks. This one-day course aims to introduce the specific agricultural training of cattle and, above all, present the different fields of work and provide practical exercises. It will cover machinery and equipment operation, as well as aspects of occupational safety and economic efficiency.

Note: Prior participation in the introductory course is recommended (unless you have practical experience with cattle).
Course fee: €100 per person, including meals and course materials
Registration: c.kropp@kloster-lorsch.de . Registration deadline: October 1st.

Virtual World Draft Cattle Symposium 

January 16-17, 2027

The Center for Draft Cattle Research and Education will host the next World Draft Cattle Symposium. 
After the great success of 2024, the symposium now intends to focus more on the practical use of draft cattle around the globe and in the 21st century as well as on the preservation of skills. We want to bring together practitioners, engineers and scientists for comprehensive discussions on best practice examples as well as to explore innovative new ways of understanding, training and utilizing draft cattle.
We are excited to document and preserve relevant draft cattle skills and the traditional knowledge that comes with it.
The symposium will be hosted virtually in order to give as many people the chance to participate as possible. It also intends to create high standards in order to make it as accessible and participatory for local farmer communities, especially in the global south.

Horses Strong

On August 28th and 29th, 2027 in Dörentrup, Germany, the next big festival of working horses will take place once again on the grounds of Wendlinghausen Castle and Estate in Dörentrup! Thousands of guests from Germany and abroad will gather to celebrate this special event!  Visit here for more information.