![]() How hard can that be?” Well anybody who has played a game of golf can probably sympathize that trying to put an object in a certain spot while using another tool can be challenging. I thought, “Ok, ok, I just tell them ‘Come here!’ then I tell them ‘Whoa!’ and we stop right where Andy wants the stoneboat. My first few practices driving Burt and Marvin were not what I had expected. Spreading compost on the garden where the roots – beets, carrots, parsnips will be planted. We have to be always thinking about where we want to pull the stoneboat, giving the oxen the right commands, making sure the oxen respond with the right movements, and see if we have navigated the corner without any rocks falling off. For all we know, oxen are not rational thinking animals like us. ![]() So if we give the oxen a command, such as, “Come here!” the oxen move forward, because they associate the sound and a crack of the whip on their rumps if they do not move fast enough. They respond to voice commands and negative reinforcements of the whip that are both built on their prey animal instincts. According to Andy, oxen are never finished with their schooling. In order to be of any help to Andy, I have to learn to teach or “train” the oxen. I am farmer Andy’s apprentice for this year. Instead, he has a Holstein team of oxen to plow, spread manure, haul stones, cart, cultivate, harrow, disc, skid logs, and pull you-name-it. He does not have a tractor to work the land. He grows over 30 types of vegetables on about 1 acre, about another acre of various grains, and raises pastured chickens, pigs, and grass-fed cattle. There is a farmer in Northern Pennsylvania, Millerton to be exact, who trains and utilizes oxen to make a living farming. Historians of early America say that if it were not for the cow and the ox, then none of us would be here today. The truth is that oxen are an amazing asset to a farm and are as useful today as they were yesterday. The only other oxen I have encountered reside on historical interpretation farms like the Howell Living History Farm or Sturbridge Village. Today, using oxen primarily for farming is uncommon in the United States. ![]() From Left to Right: Burt, Marvin, (the oxen) Andy, and Jake.
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