On a Saturday afternoon last March, after spending a day in the woods at Tillers with the Logging with draft Animals Class, Brandt Ainsworth and I sat down for an interview, part of the collection I'm putting together.
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| Howard Van Ord, with John and Henry |
When I sat down to transcribe the interview this winter, the first few minutes struck me. Throughout, Brandt is obviously a credit-where-credit-is-due guy, but his affection for, and admiration of, his oxen mentor Howard Van Ord is especially personal and touching. I'm just sad that I didn't send Mr. Van Ord a copy.
What follows is the first few minutes of our conversation:
Brandt Ainsworth: I used to pull horses in the Warren County Fair in Pittsfield, Pennsylvania and we would see oxen down there. They had an ox pull and I know I missed it one year and my dad told me about it and then the next year I was competing at the horse pull and saw the oxen pull in the oxen classes and I was very impressed. I kind of had it in my mind I wanted to do that, but it was intimidating. I couldn't hardly get a cow to come out of the pasture and into her stanchion, I didn’t think I could train a steer to do something without ropes or reins or anything. Later that winter, I was in Burton, Ohio pulling horses again and I had a breakdown on one of my harnesses and I stopped at a local harness shop and they had a copy of Rural Heritage magazine with a team of oxen on the front and I picked that up and it sparked my interest. I just called the first number in the classifieds where they list the oxen teamsters and it happened to be Howie Van Ord and he happened to live fairly close to me and we struck up a friendship and he taught me what I know about oxen. Almost all of it came from Howie, actually.
Rob Collins: Did you go visit him? Did he come to you?
BA: A lot of phone calls to start with and then we were only, maybe, 60 miles apart, so I would go visit him fairly often and we got to where it would work both ways and he would come up and visit us. Sometimes he'd even - and Howie has almost no interest in horses - but because we were friends, he’d come watch my horses compete in the horse pulls.
RC: Do you drive like Howie?
BA: Yes. I think so, because we interchange pretty well. I can drive his team; He can drive my team and that doesn’t always happen. I’ve seen people struggle to drive Howie’s team- even people who are successful ox teamsters - just because we have different cues and stuff and I think we drive similarly. I try not to be in a hurry just like Howie. I think Howie is patient and calm, but he also- when I met him, Howie was in his late 60’s- and that made him want to work the team slower and I think that’s. . . you know, if you use good techniques you’ll get just as much done at a slow pace as you will at a fast pace. Maybe more.
RC: So, how does Howie drive? You say it’s a little slower. What does that look like?
BA: Methodical. I don’t know if I showed it much with the team today driving, but if I’m hooked to a log and I’m going to turn, I stop the team. I turn a few feet. I stop them again. Maybe pull ahead, maybe turn. I don’t try to do everything all in one motion. I also try not to “over-drive” them, overuse the goad. If they’re doing what they should, there’s no reason to give that same command, either visually or with a goad or with your body position, or verbally. I think I picked all of that up from Howie and just some of the cues we give. Howie always says, “Come along” to start a team. He says, “I don’t want them to get up. They’re already up!” (laughs) and he would literally have his trained. They’d be laying in the pasture and he would say, “get up, John,” and John would get up. “Get up, Henry,” and Henry would get up. Get up is for horses. You’re behind them; You want them to get up. Oxen? You want them to come along with you, and so I either say “Come along,” or I chirp to a team to start them. I touch them in the same spots with the goad stick. I believe Howie touches them between to horns for “Whoa,” like I do.
A lot of that plays all around. I believe that Howie learned a lot from Ray Ludwig. I know he did. Howie learned his earliest stuff from John Lamb, who was a guy who I remember seeing with oxen; I really didn’t know him well. I didn’t have the interest in oxen at the time, but I got to know his family well and he actually lives fairly close to me, or did live, fairly close to me. Howie learned all his basics from John Lamb back in, I think, the late 50’s. John Lamb started with oxen in 1928. I remember reading that somewhere.
RC: Howie always says that he’s only got one way of doing things: The right way. Everybody else has ways that work, but his is the right way. (Laughs) Do you think the way you work is tradition, or do you think it really is. . .does it matter if it’s “the best way” or if it’s working regardless?
BA: Mmmm, I kind of do think there is a “right way,” and then the other ways. I try to be open-minded and if a better way comes along that becomes the right way, I guess. I also try to be diplomatic. I don’t want to offend anybody. You can’t alienate anybody: it’s such a small industry. We want to keep everybody happy, you know, and interested. You don’t want to tell somebody that they’re doing it wrong and discourage them. And, are they really doing it “wrong” if it’s working for them? But, even though I say that on the outside, I’m a lot like Howie. I’m like, “Boy, I would never do it that way. You wouldn’t catch me doing that with my own team,” that’s the kind of things I think. I’m not quite as opinionated or as vocal about it as Howie is, but I think I feel as strongly as he does. Especially when it comes to yoke fit, fitting the yoke to the team. I don’t think there’s a lot of different ways. I think it either fits correctly or it’s wrong.
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