One-horse farming

Conall and Dixie

Conall‘s winter job this year is cutting firewood on Canada’s east coast (Nova Scotia), in partnership with his trusty workhorse, Dixie. It sounds pretty intense. He started tiny farming from scratch two seasons ago, our first full-season full-timer, way back in ’07. Last year, he was out in NS, on a tiny, one-horse farm, learning to plow and cultivate veggies, and bring in the hay, with Dixie. This winter’s job involves heading into the woods with Dixie, where he fells small trees with a chainsaw, guides Dixie to drag the logs, at times through waist-deep snow, to a clearing, cuts down the logs to firewood, loads it onto the sled, and hauls it out for delivery. Conall’s plan for this summer: a Dixie-powered market garden…  What I wonder is, the Kubota compact tractor vs Dixie?

8 thoughts on “One-horse farming”

  1. Kubota can do a lot of things just now– if I had one, I’d use it gleefully — have got tractor skills but no horse skills —  and it doesn’t have to be fed and curried daily but its need for fossil fuels will put it, and its like, more and more at odds with Dixie and with all of us sooner or later, methinketh.

    risa b

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  2. Having worked on farms run with horses, I’d guess a Dixie (or two) would take that one.  Having parents who run their tiny farm with a trusted old Ford tractor, I have to admit that tractors sure are convenient!

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  3. Horse questions: What breed is Dixie? She looks strong and healthy.

    Where do you learn to plow with a horse or even buy a horse drawn plow?

    Thank You
    Dennis

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    • Subscribe to draft horse journal and rural heritage magazine. The trainers and equipment makers all advertise There

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  4. Connal!
    Dixie!
    What are you guys doing on the internet?
     
    I googled “horse farming” and this came up!

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