First time I tried to farm with animals I started with draft horses. My mistake.
We're so focused on high power. Even draft horses were too big, too fast, and required too much energy input to operate.
The tool defines the job.
This is me at 42.
We're so focused on high power. Even draft horses were too big, too fast, and required too much energy input to operate.
The tool defines the job.
This is me at 42.
2. I had this gut feeling that we'd fucked up when we went over to cars, trucks, and tractors, but I hadn't thought it through yet.
3. A guy offered me a good deal on a team of fuzzy mules about the size of my current team, but, oh, no, I had to have draft horses.
Permaculture had already been invented, but I hadn't crossed its path. Didn't know it existed. I was getting my info from the Extension Office.
Permaculture had already been invented, but I hadn't crossed its path. Didn't know it existed. I was getting my info from the Extension Office.
4. The only people in America who knew how to farm with horses did it with draft horses, and they did conventional farming, plowing, cultivating - topsoil destruction, horses or tractors. Or oxen. Or donkeys. Or camels. It doesn't work. For details see "Fertile Crescent."
5. Doing it with animals slows the rate of loss, because there are more obstacles left, smaller fields, more windbreaks, woody draws. But plowed ground washes and blows away. End of story.
We've proven that to absolute certainty.
We've proven that to absolute certainty.
6. When I bought my forty in 1984, my stated purpose was to manage it to maximize wildlife habitat and feed.
I attended public courses in wildlife land management offered by the Missouri Department of Conservation. It took me a few years - five or six maybe - to get to horses.
I attended public courses in wildlife land management offered by the Missouri Department of Conservation. It took me a few years - five or six maybe - to get to horses.
7. I grew up in Kansas City. I'd been on horses a grand total of maybe 8 times in my life, at Benjamin Stables and Scout camp. I looked like this 😳 for two years. 40 acres of tired, farmed-to-death hill ground. Three room house. City wife, no kids. Late 30s.
8. Virtually nobody in America has ever farmed with donkeys. Virtually nobody in America has ever farmed without plowing. There was *no* information source that donkeys were the most practical power source in agriculture worldwide, and probably the most widely used, although oxen
9. Are giving them a run for their money.
The vast majority of all the food in the world is produced using animal traction power. We produce a lot of industrial corn and soybeans with our giant bulldozer tractors, but we're all monocrop and in it for the cash flow. Not much food.
The vast majority of all the food in the world is produced using animal traction power. We produce a lot of industrial corn and soybeans with our giant bulldozer tractors, but we're all monocrop and in it for the cash flow. Not much food.
10. Farming, the way I do it, is to keep and dress the Earth, encourage it to produce all the life it possibly can, and to make more than all I need to eat while you're at it.
Squirrel is every bit as good as beef, and I can harvest them with an air rifle. Nuts, berries, fruit.
Squirrel is every bit as good as beef, and I can harvest them with an air rifle. Nuts, berries, fruit.
11. Shovel, stakes, hammer, a dozen bare rooted oak seedlings... Draft horses can't touch donkeys for this. And these girls together require less energy and cash than one draft horse.
12. The donkey is the undisputed lowest energy and water requirement power source available to humankind save our own bodies. They are vastly easier to harness, easier to drive, easier to see around than the best trained draft horse.
13. A recurring theme in pushback to my writing is that "there are too many people" and "there is not enough land to do it your way."
One family can support themselves on less land with a donkey than any other power source, and power the donkey off the same land at the same time.
One family can support themselves on less land with a donkey than any other power source, and power the donkey off the same land at the same time.
14. I could take the equipment parking lot of an industrial American farm - just where they park their trucks, tractors, combines, planting, tillage, fertilizer and spraying equipment, just their parking lot - and turn that land into a family supporting, donkey powered farm.
15. I always wonder why, since there's an overpopulation and everybody should quit fucking, we're OK with spending another 1.3 trillion dollars bulldozing and paving formerly green growing land, but nobody wants to talk about it.
Anyway.
If I'd started out with permaculture
Anyway.
If I'd started out with permaculture
16. powered by donkeys, in 1989, that 40 acres would be producing way more staple foodstuffs than my family could eat in a year. Including meat.
And sinking additional carbon every single year, operating at net way-below-Zero.
And sinking additional carbon every single year, operating at net way-below-Zero.
17. PS here's the whole hour + of planting those seedlings, zero carbon style.
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