Side Effects: Unexplained Bruising

Having spent the last 10 days in close contact with my three oxen, along with Tillers' nine oxen, working steers and calves (I was helping to teach the Oxen Basics class and attending the Gathering), I've come to the realization that oxen need to come with a list of side effects similar to those medicines where the commercial's 30 seconds are divided into 10 seconds of 'what it does' and 20 seconds of 'why taking this makes it likely you'll die a horrific death tomorrow.'

I think the ad copy would go a little like this:

Oxen: a great solution to getting hay mowed, sorghum cultivated, and logs hauled.  Available in single doses, pairs, or bigger teams for those stubborn problems. 

No problems so far.  Now, onto the warning label:

Side effects may include:  
- A loss of all free time, which may be directly proportional to the quality of your fencing, housing, and water delivery system.

- An inability to simply state directions in common, local vernacular language.  Examples may include (but are not limited to): "Haw them a bit." in place of "Turn left."

Figure A

- Unexplained Bruising, particularly in your right arm, which may be worsened by driving an animal with horns that turn up and out, especially when said animal rocks his head more than most similarly-sized animals.  (see figure A).

- More unexplained bruising, particularly in the knuckles region, most especially when scrub planing white oak boards into tapers for Sterling College Interns.  

- Sore feet, most generally on the right foot, which may correlate with the number of haw adjustments  (that means 'left" for those suffering from side effect #2)  done while cultivating sorghum.  Foot soreness may radiate out in a hoof-shaped pattern, although this effect may be lessened by the softness of the ground.

- Bleeding at the site of a drawknife slice, nearly 100% related to picking up, putting down, or storing the tool and nearly 0% (ever!) related to actually using the tool for yokemaking.

- Foolish feelings resulting from telling students to be careful when storing drawknives and then noticing "Bleeding at the site of a drawknife slice."

If you experience any of these symptoms, apply duct tape and swearing as needed.

Going Dutch: Shameless Commerce Division Part 2

Dr. Brenda works more efficiently than I do, I think.  Her beautiful quilt for the MODA raffle has been done for weeks, while I've been chipping slowly away at the 3rd prize: an oxen med kit in a "dutch tool chest."  See the video for details:

It's been a fun project, but I want to win it back.  It's much nicer than the one I built to work out of a number of years ago.  

Anyway, if you would like to mail in a ticket, simply print them out and mail them in so they can be drawn to win on Sunday June 24.

Mail Tickets to:
MODA Raffle 
Rob Collins
923 Babcock Road
Sherwood, MI 49089

Making Tortillas

Cooking tortillas has at least one really fun element. 

I once taught my sociology students to make tortillas from scratch (along with other kinds of 'bread,' as we explored cultural variations) and that was mildly amusing.

My grandma used to fry flour tortillas in hot oil.  They puff up spectacularly and taste even better.  That's a good time.

But, the best time comes when heating raw tortillas, such as these, in a hot pan with a little butter.  If you have a pot of black beans, and some cheese, you can attempt to keep up with the cooking:  Flipping the tortillas by hand until they're done, you fill and eat each one as the next one is cooking. 

I can manage to keep up through three.  I should not be proud of this, but there it is.  With my kids, we can have someone waiting all the way up to nine. 

In the oxen world, I've found my match.  Today, I was cutting grass across the road for Brutus, Cassius, and Zeus- using a scythe, a wheelbarrow, and a rake I made.  Halfway through cutting each load, the chorus would fire back up.  Angry moos let me know that their last 'tortilla' was done and they were expecting the next. 

Maybe I should stick to standing over a hot pan and stuffing burritos in my mouth. 

Shameless Commerce Division: Part 1

The MODA Quilt

Anyone who listens to NPR even a little is familiar with Car Talk, the call-in car repair show hosted by Tom and Ray Magliozzi and all of its running gags.

From "stump the chumps," where they called people back after giving them advice to see if the advice worked, to the closing credits -with an ever-changing list of specialists (airline seat tester: Wilma Butfit and anger manager:  Kirsten Hollered are among my favorites) to the "Shameless Commerce Division" which sold merchandise, the show took a fun approach to car repair.

In that spirit, we welcome you to the "2018 MODA Gathering Shameless Commerce Division."  Here, you'll find great ways to help support the Midwest Ox Drovers Association.  

First, click here to print off a sheet of MODA raffle tickets.  They are just $1 each or 6 for $5.  The drawing is June 24 at 1:00 PM, so if you mail your tickets and money in before then, you'll be entered to win one of this year's prizes:

1st Place: a handmade MODA quilt by Dr. Brenda Grettenberger, MODA treasurer.  It's pretty awesome!

2nd Place: A knockdown, light duty, logging / firewood scoot (more details later)

Look at that Quilting!

3rd Place: An Oxen Med Kit in a handmade wooden chest.  (more details on this later as well)

Mail Tickets to:
MODA Raffle 
Rob Collins
923 Babcock Road
Sherwood, MI 49089

Also, if you click here you can Pre-order one of the limited edition 2018 MODA T-Shirts.  Pre Orders

The 2018 T-Shirt Design

end June 1, so hurry on those.

So, whether you are an oxen feeding specialist like Phil Rooman, or an oxen clean-up engineer like Lotta B. Essen, the MODA raffle helps support our mission at the Gathering and all year long.  

The Med Kit in Progress

Dovetails, cut by hand.

Dado joinery, cut by hand

A Good Wife

Often times, I'll head out the door to school with a shirt and tie on, but the collar of my shirt leaving some tie exposed.  When Cara spots me later in the day, she tucks it in and usually remarks, "You need a good wife."

Most times, I'll tease her right back by saying, "I sure do."

We're used to this back and forth.  She's a good wife for myriad reasons, most of which have nothing to do with oxen.  Once in a while, though, Cara steps into the world of oxen with me.

When Cara was young, her parents took birding trips as part of her dad's job as a naturalist.  Africa, England, Ireland, South America.  Sometimes, she got to go; Other times, she stayed behind and they brought home a souvenir.

One such souvenir from Costa Rica was a model ox cart, painted similarly to the ones they photographed on their trip.

Cara held onto it and recently brought it home fromm her childhood room and gave it to her fashion-challenged husband.

A good wife, indeed.

Ground Hog's Day

I had a principal once at school who happily told me about his Ground Hog Day: "I slept in, then went out for breakfast, played 18 holes of golf, went home and took a nap, played another 18 holes of golf, then went out for dinner and had a few beers with my wife and some friends.  I'd do that every day if I could."

While I think a day like that sounds more like Dante's Purgatorio (My son and I used to play one round of golf a year- nine holes and he had more fun driving the cart than anything), he was referring to the Bill Murray movie of the same name, in which Bill Murray's character must relive the same day- in his case Ground Hog's Day in Punxatawney, PA- over and over again. 

My Facebook feed reminded me today that April 2, 2010 is my Ground Hog's Day.  It was Good Friday and I was off from school and starting spring break.  Dulcy at Tillers had asked if I would like to help plow "a couple of gardens in Kalamazoo."

Dulcy, Joshua (a then-new intern), and I loaded up Hershel and Walker, an Oliver 99 plow and drove 20 minutes or so to the Western Michigan University campus for garden #1- A community garden for WMU students. 

After a short talk, we got to plowing, and soon discovered that the former building site was less than ideal for a garden.  The ground was hard and varied greatly (hard to rock hard, with old foundation debris scattered throughout), but the people were very friendly, they had snacks and music, and the weather was chilly, but sunny.  A local TV news crew was on site and somewhere there's a tape of me wrestling that plow into and out of the ground from the 11:00 PM news. 

From there, we headed across town and a world away.  Dulcy had made arrangements to plow a community garden in a small vacant lot on Kalamazoo's north side.  The neighborhood was, and is, quite poor.  I had volunteered at a Headstart program on Kalamazoo's north side when I was in college at WMU, so I was generally familiar with the neighborhood. 

When we got there, we had to parallel park on the street, as that was the only parking available.  We yoked the team tied to the back of the trailer and walked them down half a block to the lot, with someone wheeling the plow on the guide wheel down the street. 

By this time, it was early afternoon and a sunny 65 degrees, so nearly everyone in the neighborhood was out enjoying the day.  Needless to say, we drew a crowd. 

For the next three hours, we turned the soil, chatted with the parade of people who stopped by- a notable number of whom simply stopped their cars, still running, in the street and jumped out to "get a picture of them bulls!"- and introduced a number of kids to the oxen and the walking plow.  One of my new friends kept coming back and eventually made five furrows with me at the plow.  With the chaos of the event: the people, a cement truck literally next door, the cars and bicycles, we decided it was best to have Dulcy do all of the driving- she's a master teamster, so I was the plowboy all afternoon. 

By the time we were done, the organizers felt like old friends and we wished we could stay a little longer. 

As much as I like working oxen by myself and plowing with one other person, I really enjoy teaching new people about them.  That brings me the most joy.  Give me every day like that and I'll be more than happy.

What's your perfect day with "them bulls?"

The Magic Algebraic Equation

(x + y) * (z)(z)(z) = (d)

For most beginners, getting a feel for driving oxen doesn't happen all at once.  In a class, it's nice to have a few students to trade off the goad so the students can go through a number of critical steps:

1.  Watch an experienced teamster do (x) correctly (where x= Hitching to a cart, for instance).

2.  Do (x) incorrectly.

3.  Feel sheepishly humbled.

4.  Do (x) passably, with coaching.

5.  Handoff and watch steps 2-4 with someone else attempting.

6. Think about what worked and didn't work.

7.  Start back at (x) suddenly better than before.

The key in step 6 is that the student gets to add (y) (Where y= "why").

It's easy for students to identify THAT what they did didn't work, but when they step back and watch someone else's struggle, the "why" (y) becomes apparent.

Then, it's a simple matter of multiplying those steps in their head by several (z)(z)(z)'s (where z= sleeping on it) in order to end up driving (d) oxen.  The more z's, the better.

After repeating the equation over a decade, I'm starting to feel like a pretty good beginner myself.

Yesterday, we had two students, Russ and Tristan, out at Tillers for day one of Ox Driving Class.  They did really well.  Both had cattle sense to start with, which helps greatly, and both were easily coached.  Day two starts in a few hours.  We'll see if they had their zzzz's.  I hope so.