Barney and Birdie, part 1 of 5

Barney and Birdie were the only two horses that I ever closely associated with. When I first encountered them, Barney, the younger of the two, was somewhere between 10 and 15 years of age, probably toward the lower end of this age range. However, my impression of his age was based on hearsay, the change comment of someone who had knowledge of his history, and at that not too clearly remembered by me. He was brown in color, and I’d guess he had considerable Percheron in his ancestry — at least his conformation resembled the pictures I have seen of this breed of horse. He was blind in his left eye. A gelding, he was still a quite vigorous horse, certainly better in this respect than Birdie who was older, and, also by hearsay, his mother. Birdie was long past the age when she would again produce offspring. Differently from Barney she had more the characteristics of a Shire — larger and clumsier hooves, and a more rugged and taller frame. Because of her age she was not the work horse Barney was. Like Barney she was brown in color.

















Percheron




















Shire

The two horses were probably the last survivors of the array of work horses that had been used on my grandfather Peterson’s farm. Not that my grandfather knew of them — he had died in the mid 1910s, and even Birdie was not likely to have been born by then. Thus they were the product of purchase or breeding by those of my uncles who had taken over the farm operation after his death. That would probably have been my uncles Carl and Serenus, though my uncle Laurence may have been involved. My uncle George, of uncertain health and physical capability, may have participated in the work of the farm on occasion but I doubt very much that he made any management decisions. My uncle Milton, the youngest of the five uncles, left the farm at a relatively early age for schooling and though I recall him mentioning to me that he had plowed with horses, I surmise that he never functioned extensively or intimately in the ongoing work of the farm. My uncle Laurence, until he decided on entering the Lutheran ministry, was probably headed for being an Iowa farmer and might well have been involved in one way or another with the earlier history of Barney and Birdie. The periods of time when the various uncles worked on or managed the Peterson farm is not clear in my mind, and now that they, and all the sisters, are deceased the times are largely lost to history. I do know that Uncle Serenus was living on the farm in the early 1920s, probably conducting his purebred hog operation and perhaps farming the land as well, in whole or in part. When he too left to enter the ministry my uncle Carl took over the cultivation of the farm I believe. After my uncle Serenus left the farm, the house was on occasion rented out, but whether the renter ever participated in the farm work I don’t know.

I believe my first encounter with Barney and Birdie was when I was just finished with the seventh grade at school. That was the summer that my parents moved our family from the house we lived in, in Gowrie, out to the Peterson farmstead which at the time was unoccupied. The move was made to accommodate the decline in the family income, the result of the depression of the ’30s. The moving of the family furniture was made in various farm wagons, those directly associated with the Peterson farm but also in addition some belonging to neighboring farmers. At least one of these wagons was doubtless drawn by Barney and Birdie as a team though at the time I’m sure I didn’t know them as specific horses.

I say that I believe this was my first encounter, inasmuch as I do have a sort of vague recollection that while we were still residing in Gowrie, my uncle Carl had me help him in a harrowing operation. I can sort of recall him coming to the house one evening and arranging for my help. I think the work was in connection with the preparation of some land he rented south of the Peterson farm and which he used for growing potatoes. He plowed, using one of his smaller Hart Parr tractors and I followed after with the harrow, pulled doubtless by Barney and Birdie. But at the time they were just horses; they certainly did not have the individual characters that they later came to have for me.

That Barney and Birdie were the tail end of a farming-with-horses era on the Peterson farm was emphasized by the harness that was used with them. Although there were fragments of harness hanging here and there in the farm — old horse collars, harness, bridles, etc. — which I suppose could have been assembled into a complete set of harness for a team, Barney and Birdie used the last complete set to all intents and purposes. I judged the harness to be one of the more elegant sets of previous times — the home ends were topped by ornamental brass bells for example. As the cruder sets of harness wore out, eventually the preserved remains of harness were used for more ornamental occasions became the harness for everyday work. Occasional repairs had to be made to the harness being used, reins would break, traces would come apart, etc. These repairs were made by uncle Carl in a rough and ready manner, typically with a couple of rivets to piece the loose ends together. Seeing him making this kind of repair suggested to me that this was the approved technique for harness repair — until I found out in the manual training class in my freshman year in high school that sewing was the recommended method.