After lunch on Saturday, some of us took a 30 minute tour of Tuckaway Farm in a hay wagon. Our wagoner Chuck Cox is a horseman from way back, but has been using draft horses for farm power mostly in the last five years. Queen and (Dorn, what's the other one's name?) looked like they were working hard at times, but Chuck said they pull the wagon with 80 bails of hay on it, which weighs a lot more than we did. There is a great collection of old and newly designed harrows, cultivators, and rakes on the farm for pulling behind draft animals.
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The tour wagon stitched from four photos.
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We made several stops to look at some dramatic silvicultural treatments started 18 months ago. Some areas along streams were completely cleared of trees to create habitat (Rabbitat) for New England cottontail rabbits which are becoming rare. Native shrubs have been planted to encourage a shrub thicket. Several other areas of forest have been thinned to about 30% canopy cover to allow silvopasture. After the understory has been thinned and the ground scarified, grass and forbs will be seeded to provide forage for grazing cattle.
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The Public Lab contingent was happy to go on the hay ride...
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Until they learned they could not take their laptops.
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When we got back it was time to fly.