Time To Train The Oxen For The Fair

Even though it's six weeks away, now is the time to prepare for the Hopkinton Fair. Tonight I put a yoke on my favorite ox team, Topper and Stash, and using a chain to connect the yoke to a metal sled called a stone boat, had them pull the empty sled around the yard. Typically used to haul stones, tonight the 50-pound sled was empty. When loaded with rocks it can weigh 200 or 300 pounds.

Together Topper and Stash weigh 3,000 pounds and should be able to pull at least 60 percent of their weight or 1,800 pounds. You'd think 300 pounds of rocks would be an easy load to pull for these beefy boys. Unfortunately, my oxen are out of shape.

They might look muscular, but they are just plain fat with very little muscle. It is going to take at least six weeks of work to keep them from embarrassing themselves (and me) at the Hopkinton Fair. Fortunately, we don't compete in the weight-pulling classes where concrete blocks are added in each round.

The oxen that compete in the pulling classes are the Olympians of oxen and train hours each day to build muscle and learn to synchronize their actions to get the most leverage. If they don't work together, it's like a four-cylinder car with only two cylinders working. The team that pulls in unison has the best chance to win.

The best teams can pull "their own weight," which means a two-ox team that weighs 3,000 pounds can pull a sled with 3,000 pounds of blocks on it. That's a lot of pull.

With my team, I'm lucky if they agree to haul 300 pounds. If they don't want to work, they'll stop, look at me, and sometimes even walk backward, while their eyes say, "Sorry Carole, we think you are asking too much of us. We're just gonna take a little break, thank you."

And yet when the load is right, they enjoy their work.

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Carole Soule is co-owner of Miles Smith Farm, where she raises and sells pastured pork, lamb, eggs and grassfed beef. She can be reached at cas@milessmithfarm.com.