Or it didn't happen

 

The standard disclaimer I make to people is: "pictures or it didn't happen." If you spot the alien landing craft, you better have a photo.  So, let's just assume this is a work of fiction. That, or at least it all happened so fast that getting a camera out would have been a level or two above "foolhardy."

Zeus and Cassius were working - and not all that well- yesterday. They just aren't as crisp on turns and sidestepping as Cassius is with Brutus. But, working a span is preferable to a single for me and I like to keep Zeus doing a little something so. . .

I walked them up facing the stoneboat and dropped the chain off the front of the yoke, hooking it to the front of the stoneboat.  This had us facing the stoneboat.  A quick pivot where Cassius steps over the chain (he's the off ox) would have us moving forward. Except the memo didn't make it to Zeus, as he sidestepped out rather than stepping in and back.  

The result was that, while Cassius got three feet over the chain, he had one that didn't make it. His left front foot was up pretty high with the chain between his toes. Zeus, remember Zeus? Zeus who doesn't sidestep well? He was staying put, but coming no closer. 

Cassius started shaking his foot, but it was clear that he wasn't able to move it, step in, or take the tension off the chain. 

Pop quiz time: What do you do?

A. Unhook the chain from the yoke (nope, the aforementioned tension.)

B. Unhook the chain from the stoneboat. (Maybe. I didn't think of that, but it requires moving to the back, unhooking a tensioned chain, then hoping the slack allows him to get his toes off of it)

C. Drop somebody's bow.

Smart money's on "C." I was already in front of them, so I pulled Cassius's bow pin and he was suddenly free. Zeus stayed put when the yoke dropped, which was mighty nice of him.

Cassius backed up to stoneboat and tried to get a nibble of grass next to it. In spite of what just happened, he allowed me to pick up his end of the yoke and drive him under it. Cassius got a lot of praise and brushing when we were all back together.  

Of course, without photo or video documentation, this could all be made up.

Quidditch

“Bad news, Harry. I've just been to see Professor McGonagall about the Firebolt. She – er, got a bit shirty with me. Told me I'd got my priorities wrong. Seemed to think I cared more about winning the Cup than I do about staying alive. Just because I told her I didn't care if it threw you off, as long as you caught the Snitch first.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Quidditch, the most popular sport in the world of Harry Potter has as its most distinctive feature that it’s played on broomsticks.

Not being a wizard, I’ve never played quidditch, but I do like to keep a broomstick handy when working with a cart. 

When hauling manure in the cart and I’m done for the day, or when switching between compost and hay,  a couple of minutes with the broom tidies things up. No sense in sending for a Quality Quidditch Supplies catalog, any old stiff-bristled push broom will work as well as a Comet 260 or a Firebolt for cleaning a cart.

And if you’re able to fly around the pitch, score a goal, or catch the snitch, so much the better.

Bracket the Problem

 

Tom "being nice" to Blue.

Tom Nehil helps with the oxen classes at Tillers and we've worked together for a few years now in that capacity. While adjusting an Oliver 99 plow (How fine a "99" is as a walking plow will surely be the subject of another tale), Tom mentioned that - as a structural engineer- he recommended that we "bracket the problem:" adjust it too far one way, then the other. Once we had the limits, we could fine tune the middle. The simplicity of the idea struck me and I started employing it in other places.

At school, I teach kids to use 'bracketing' when problem solving or estimating. Kids who have me for multiple classes probably grow weary of the story, but I don't. Lucky them, eh?

Recently, we trained chickens in our psychology class. Amazingly, with nothing but positive reinforcement, the chickens learn- in one class period- to peck a green 'X,' while ignoring a green circle. That got me thinking about the limits of positive reinforcement.

I'm not describing it fully here, but reinforcements make behaviors continue or increase. Punishments make behaviors decrease or stop.  

I'm still not describing it fully here, but please stop calling punishments 'negative reinforcements.' They are NOT synonyms. (Also another tale for another day.)

I often tell students- both high school psych students and adult oxen driving students- that you should aim for 90% positive reinforcements and 10% punishments, although, like Mike Mulligan, I "had never been quite sure that this was true."

Monday, I yoked up Brutus and Cassius to move a little compost. I decided to emphasize the reinforcements and count them, while minimizing- and counting- the punishments. I hoped to hit the 90% mark.

I lost count.  

All was not lost, though, as I was also keeping track of how many times I touched the animals with the stick in order to direct them. 

Taps to start walking? Count them. Taps to stop? Count them. Taps for Gee and Haw? Count them. You get the idea.

Brushes for positive reinforcement? They don't count. They are reinforcements, designed to increase desirable behaviors. They aren't directions or punishments. Instead, they are reinforcements if they happen directly after, or during, a desired behavior. If they aren't related to a behavior, they are just called "being nice."  

Two trips around the yard with the cart, stopping multiple times, pivoting 180 degrees twice, standing to load and unload, sidestepping, yoking, unyoking. About 45 minutes total. The total number of taps? 

Zero.  

Lots of brushing. Lots of praise. But zero physical punishment or tactile direction. I did punish them four times. I barked a command to "head up!" when they were dropping their heads while standing. Since the behavior stopped, it's called a punishment. A mild one to be sure, but I still noted it. . . like a psych teacher would.

I'll keep trying to push the limits toward reinforcements. And, come to think of it, I think I'll avoid the other end of the 'bracket' altogether. I'd suggest you do the same. See how many flies you can catch with honey. . .

Flutterbys: The Return

Funny things happen when you let furniture makers build yokes. . .

One of my favorite inclusions in a table top or a large panel is a "butterfly key." Intended to stop or prevent a split, they are usually about a half an inch thick and oriented across the grain of the panel.  Scribe the outline of the butterfly, chisel out the waste, then press or pound in the butterfly with glue or epoxy. That’s the basic gist of it, although there are a couple of tricks: drilling a small area at the bottom of the hole for excess glue to pool and beveling the edges so the butterfly fits more like a cork in a bottle are just two.

I got the idea to use butterflys on a yoke when I brought the mostly-finished, big elm yoke in to the basement woodshop and the super-dry air encouraged a large check. The butterflys looked pretty, but I wasn’t sure how long they would last.

After nearly 2 years and a lot working hours, I can absolutely report that

butterflys work in a yoke. In particularly dry weather you can see the check enlarge around the butterflies, while in the summer months the check nearly disappears. I can't imagine the yoke surviving this long without the keys.

I don’t know if there’s a perfect wood species for making butterflies. The cherry ones are a nice contrast with the elm and the hickory one looks like a bit of a mismatch. Let aesthetics be your guide if you like, but "pretty is as pretty does" in this case. 

A Pandemic Story

 “Never let a good crisis go to waste”- Winston Churchill

I'm up early and getting around to teach Oxen Driving at Tillers. It's one of my favorite, annual signs of spring.  One year ago, it was the last thing I did before the pandemic shut most everything down.  

It was hard. All of it. I'll spare you those details. You've got your own.

But, a year on from that weekend, my oxen are in much better shape than they were last march. As a driver, so am I. Not a little better in either case. Twice as good. Enough so that I am a little embarrassed about how bad we were then- and I would have said we were pretty good at that time.

What made the difference? Time for sure.  Tom Jenkins told me, "There's not too many problems that can't be fixed with more time in the yoke." The other x-factor is commitment to getting better. What Angela Duckworth calls "grit." Not some magical quality of internal drive, but more like dripping water that eventually wears away stone. The recognition that, with time and incremental progress, we'll get better- because it's important.

We still have our bad days, but dragging the pasture last night with Brutus back from a foot injury, they were good enough that it felt like cheating. I wasn't driving them, just working alongside them. In the state that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls "flow."

Churchill may have been on to something. What's your story?

Remind me to. . .

I often ask Cara, "remind me to . . ." The ellipses could be replaced with anything from "pick up The Half Blood Prince from the library" to "close the garage door."  

She does. Right then. It's our joke. Then I forget to do the task.
  

Why do I mention it? I'm making a new 11-inch yoke from laminated yellow pine.  And I wonder how long it takes to make a yoke, start-to-finish.

I know a couple of things: 1. Dave Kramer demonstrated yoke-making last summer when I helped teach Oxen Basics and, man, is he fast. Jimmy Johns fast. 2. Most people estimate that tasks will take half as long as they do. Really. We'd never start them otherwise.

So far, I took about 45 minutes to lay out the pattern on the first

section. I was working slowly and adjusting the template dimensions and shape a bit as I went. 

Next, each of the center three sections took 10 minutes to cut out with my very sweet Festool jigsaw. (standard MODA Blog disclaimer: I bought it at retail and get no kickback. And it's still sweet).  Add 10 more minutes to move sawhorses, etc. and I have less than 1.5 hours so far.

Remind me to keep a running total of the time.

But don't do it right now. I'll forget.

The jigsaw leaves a smoooooth finish.

Good TV

 If you watch enough good TV*, you'll come across the same few teams of oxen.  When you think about it, it's little wonder. Hollywood doesn't need 100 teams in any given season, so the same animals work in a number of contexts.  

Luke Conner told me that he prefers solid color animals for movie work, since they can easily be 're-used' in multiple shots. I told him that I always joke with my high school students that his oxen were traitors: They clearly fought on both sides in the American Revolution- sometimes pulling British Wagons, others Continental farm equipment in the show Turn: Washington's Spies. Using black Swiss-Holstein crosses made it an unlikely catch by most viewers used to bad TV**.

This fact stood out as I watched some of M*A*S*H*, Season 5 on Hulu.  Within the first few episodes, the same ox was working both as a single and in a span. With multiple owners. The traitor.

At least M*A*S*H* now qualifies as good TV. What else do you watch that qualifies as Good TV?

*  Good TV: TV with Oxen featured regularly.
** Bad TV: TV without Oxen featured regularly