Horses for courses
I know I should go away and buy a new tractor, but I can barely afford the mechanic with the torch.
Anyway, who says that a farmer has to have a tractor?
Last night, on the telly, there was a documentary about the Amish community out in Pennsylvania. The Amish have farmed for generations using only basic farm equipment. Horses and the like.
They looked like good, hard working, God-fearing people. More importantly, they seemed to be making plenty of dosh. And I reckon their wealth is due to using a humble horse rather than a tractor.
When you think about it, it makes sense. A horse won’t guzzle down diesel like it’s going out of fashion. Its needs are simple: a bag of oats every now and again, and a bit of hay when winter sets in. A horse requires only four simple shoes to get about. A tractor, as I well know, requires four tyres of the expensive variety.
It seems to me that a horse can do the very same work as a tractor, for only a fraction of the cost. In fact, horses are better than tractors. In all my years sat in front of the telly, I never once saw Jesse James attempting to outrun a train with a Massey Ferguson. The mad devil always used a horse.
Horses drive the ladies wild, too. And for this reason alone, many more farmers should have horses.
Remember that film starring Robert Redford, called The Horse Whisperer? It drove the women wild, well my woman anyway. Do you honestly think that it would have been as popular with the missus, had it been called The David Brown 996 Whisperer? Redford would have been laughed off the screen, and rightly so.
How many songs have been written about the exploits of tractors? Sure, there was that dreadful JCB song, but it turned my stomach rather than tugged at my heart strings.
There must be thousands of songs dedicated to the wonderful lives of horses, all excellent songs, I might add.
So there you have it, if my tractor breaks down once more, I won’t be calling a mechanic, I’ll be calling on my uncle Charlie.
Charlie knows more about horses than John Wayne, and in a matter of seconds, he could supply me with more horses than the whole Sioux nation.
Real horse power, that’s what’s needed around here.
