Dorcas Speer Interviews Living History Farm Workers (WOI News Clip 432)

Clio Wortmann just brought a load of schoolchildren in from the tour out of the other farm now you're volunteering why are you volunteering because I'm on sick leave and little something to do why I came out here at the volunteers children as they come through to see the history forum now you said it's been a long time since you have had horses like this that's right it's been about 33 years since I driven team of horses and I think we better go and find out where all of these horses came from this is Chet Randolph and you are is it director of Living History Farms now tell me about the horses first well since we're holding these two got these a beautiful pair of Percheron four-year-olds they're excellent type geldings they weigh around eighteen nineteen hundred pounds stand over 17 hands and don't you think they're pretty nice and gentle for four-year-olds they're real nice they're really nice aren't they lots of power there and we take them on the hay rack to take the children out to the Pioneer farm as well as we do have a tractor as a backup also now actually will they be working the fields at all not this year now next year we'll have the 1904 farm to follow up after the Pioneer 1840 Pioneer farm that we have operating with oxen now and when we do we'll have a little bit smaller farm type horse these are a bit more of the heavy draft horse that's particularly popular now and the old pertree you know came from France and then of course we've got our big Belgian team that comes from Dix barrows forty horse hitch and they're pretty famous now of course these are the ones that were pulling the cart yeah shall we shall we go over there and see doc and Brian oh wait I didn't introduce you properly here this is major hello major well he's big and you see he's going to grow yet because he's only four years old and then this is Prince and they're a nice up headed team that's real good in fact they're they're just too quiet you can you can leave them pretty well okay let's go over and let me introduce you now this Barney bull Barney this is from Dick's from dick sparrows 40 horse hitch and you know that's the first 40 horse hitch since 1902 and this is doc right over here doc hey come here hey attaboy there 11 years old but they're just as quiet as can be the children come up and pet them you know and we lift up their feet so they can see how big they are and it's great to have dependable horses like this they'll with ton each you know who's gonna shoot him he'll say I'm not sure but we're gonna have him chard all right on crass festival time and at other times during the year but these Belgians come from Belgium and they're a very popular hitch now these were the core and the most dependable horses out of the 40 horse hitch and of course they were in the Washington DC cherry blossom parade and all that and we get to use them here for quite a while we appreciate that now I suspect some children just think that these may be our nice little glasses or something well the blinders are on now these horses wouldn't need them but some horses might get skittish about what's behind them if they can't see it they don't worry about it now but just you indicated these are very gentle horses and when you're talking about the children around now a during school year you have the groups what about the summer time yeah okay well I was just gonna say do you know for example this week we have 600 school children coming groups 30 40 50 coming from several parts of the state coming all three groups a day let's say and then in the summertime it'll be mostly families off the highway and we think that families that are going from Chicago to Denver let's say will enjoy a rest stop here and and they can go out and enjoy the quiet of the Pioneer farm and then hit on their way of course being right on Interstate 80 and 35 it's a wonderful location to pull off now if you the full tour would take a couple hours but if folks don't have that much time they can walk in the barn and see our ewes and lambs and of course not did you see the setting hens in there I didn't see them I saw the little lamb and I saw the some of the hen we hope to have little chicks before long and we set them here and once the chicks are a little watch Barney kind of shakes head once in a while why we take them out to the Pioneer farm we think it's well to let the chicks have a few days of age same way with the Lambs and then they go out there so and then of course we have pigs coming frequently and we find that the children well we ask the children what do you like best well actually they like it all including the treadmill now in the treadmill is is back there well maybe we better just take a look now behind us is the barn that you would see first camp and over there is the main house and those were built in 1870 by mr. Flynn they're quite architectural II interesting and now there's work to be done a lot of work to be done but we have many volunteers as well as others who are supporting us with the funds and with time now as you go around then you you have the little building there then you have the loop house it has a very old loom which again many way I've heard several older ladies say now there's one I haven't seen in a long time and we have spinning like out again the pioneer far most daily and then when we have our special events we have the weaving as well as the loom so you see we can show particularly children but I think many older folks like to go from the you with the wool through the carding through the Loom and the spinning and all around here you have the repair shop the museum that's right and our Pioneer Museum is just a start but again many folks have given us things and they'll be giving us more now that we're more prepared and this will gradually improve in its display now could I just the second on the treadmill you see when we have younger children it's a little hard for them to comprehend history I mean you know three years seems like a long time let alone a hundred but if we can get them on the treadmill then they can see that when they didn't have electricity Barney just take it easy and when didn't have gas engines you had to use a sheep or a goat in a treadmill and we put youngsters in there and they can see what it was like to grind corn for cornmeal let's say or for the pigs and they get a kick out of it but they learned something I think by now of course this is all here with the museum and all this now you keep saying going to the other farm now how do we get to the other and if we were just coming off the interstate would we be seeing the other one you come off the interstate and spend a little time here in the headquarters about a half an hour let's say and then we go either by horse and hay rack or if they prefer depending on some of the older folks like to have a little nicer seat why then we'll take the tractor or it's a little faster back up and it's about a mile over to the Pioneer farm now unless it's tough to walk we like to let younger people like you and I and unless you know like to walk across the creek we have a footbridge and then up the hill and as you turn the hill you all of a sudden there is the cabin and the smokehouse and the oxen and the Pioneer farmer working in the garden or making shingles or whatever it is it's a nice sight and he's it isn't just looking because we've the Pioneer farmers there you get to visit with him he shoots his rifle which is a hundred and thirty years old obviously why don't we just go visit well that's good and he's there every day you know so we can go any time and he's you will find him work in there and so with cheddar Randolph will go visit the other farm and we're coming by the wagon through the mud pot yeah we went under the interstate which were fortunate to have and now you see we're in the farm section a different temple alive here and as we head down across the creek here why we're in the wonderful timber area it's peaceful we've got a lot of squirrels because of all the oak trees rabbits muskrat to swim in there you know it's really nice and of course quite a few cows and calves that look good on the on the green hillsides and then fairly soon when we come up around the rise why you'll see the old heraclio that's it we'll see the finer cabin come into view now this you have as the route that you bring most of the people at right now of course next year we'll add another to the route and that is the 1904 storm but for this year we have the Pioneer farm completed and that's our feature and so that we're going to have actually a 50 year span on the farm what about the one of the future well that'll be the year after that and again we want to look ahead as well as look back which tells the total story of agriculture we want to appreciate the heritage some of the courage that it took but at the same time we want to look at the progress that we've made and and get an appreciation of our food supply and the farmers who raise it now actually Darwin has tied both of them up and he's putting on the yoke which he made himself the yokes that we had here weren't big enough because these oxen which came from Maine weigh a ton of piece and they were just too big and buck on this side with brought over there the Hawks the near ox is buck here but you can see that's a pretty good size job fortunately they're quiet he's a 4-h girl trained these and they were also in the logging business up in Maine and Darwin works them here the thing again is that we have the oxen power because it wasn't until at least 1850 that the horses came in prominently oxen were dependable they were sure keepers and they had lots of power now they weren't too fast but they were dependable were they cheaper to keep Darwin were cattle cheaper you think they graze easier that's right but you could they do a little better and grazing on their own and again partly they didn't fuss and fret you know you can see how docile that they are they don't waste any energy probably couldn't hear Darwin but he was saying that they were cheaper not only that you could eat him if necessary now actually to hitch him up to the wagon you actually take the tongue of the wagon and put it in to what it goes in the oak ring that's the iron ring that's hanging between the oxen and oxen different from horses and pulling a wagon and that the oxen pull from the end of the tongue and the horses pull from the double trees at the back of the town now actually if you were pulling a log you'd put the chain there too when you use a log chain then yes I have an 18-foot chain that I generally use in the timber with them now how do you train an oxidant well there's two ways you can break them out as a calf which this team started when they were about two weeks old and they're about nine years old now and then a lot of the logging companies and the road companies that worked great numbers of oxen many times rough broke three-year-olds which is just putting a unbroke three-year-old steer and the yoke with oxen ahead and behind and one broken beside them and they either came along or were dragged along how did you get interested in oxen well we worked a couple of teams over in the Glidden area where we're our own Museum for five years obviously this is late spray and this is the garden and and nothing's come up yet well we've just gotten our garden in it's been a little wet the spring and I put potatoes and onions in yesterday and we have parsnips and turnips to go in yet today are there any special techniques that you use that the other gardeners of Iowa would not be using well nothing particular of course it's not fertilized or anything and all hands baited and all this pretty much we still use the old way here now as far as this area over in here what do you have well this area over here is our place where we do the single making and saw our firewood and just generally work with the wood over here do the people enjoy coming out what about the little children I think they spatially enjoy it they get to see some things that they're maybe not aware of before and I think that they do enjoy it do you plan to stay oh I've been here three years and you now see the cabin that's about two years old and was built by Darwin TD and if you come to visit the living history farm perhaps you will see him work over a period of time and see the results of part of the work and Thank You Darwin thank you in order to get to the Living History Farms take the Hickman Road exit for i-35 and IET that's interstate 35 and interstate 80 exit number 32 if you're driving out of des moines directly take Hickman Road the address is really 2600 Northwest 111 Street but that is Hickman Road if it went that far for opportunities this summer have been offered for attending special festivals the summer special events are Crafts Festival May the 12th and 13th 50th anniversary of the Department of Agriculture June the 23rd the green harvest festival in late July and the corn harvest festival October the 6th if you want more information concerning these events or if you wish to visit at other times contact chat Randolph executive director his address is living history farm 2600 Northwest 111 Street in Des Moines with a zip code of 503 to 2 and the telephone number is two seven eight eight nine three six it is listed in the Des Moines phone directory