2019 so far

I'm going to try and get this blog updated with all the new stuff going on around here.

This spring I had a great opportunity to purchase a team of Belgians and some great farm equipment.  I'd like to instroduce you to Laverne and Shirley.  They are a team that has been together most of their life.  They seem to be in their 20s, and know how to work.

Introducing Laverne and Shirley

 

Check out the new toys!!!  :)   I got a harrow, a foot plow, an I&J forcart, a metal horse stock, and an old running gear that I intend to make a hay wagon out of.

Plow with a foot lever

Harrow

I&J Forecart (this has a PTO drive ... sooo cool!)

running gear

I also got a hay rake shortly before the other toys.  This is a nice ground driven one that is in great condition!

This leaves me with 3 horses.  They get along fine and I hope to be doing lots of 3 abreast work soon.

Pam

Laverne

Shirley

One other note of caution ... watch your horses.  Put your hands on them everyday.   Pam was standing out in the pasture for a few days.  We saw her, but never actually went out to her.  Turns out she had found a loose strand of barbed wire and it had wrapped her back ankles completely together.  We noticed when she went down.  Not a good situation and we nearly lost her.  Thanks to my wife and a good vet we were able to bring her back.  She still has nasty wounds on her ankles that are healing.  Keep an eye on your horse babies!!

Pam's rear feed as they heal

Christmas Wagon Rides Were A Success!

Christmas came and went, and with it, the wagon rides.

I really had a great time.  I ended up using Marty only.  He is a great horse, and did perfect.  He behaved perfectly and pulled all night each night.  It was nice to have a horse stout enough to handle a full night of pulling.  Can't complain about that.

Even more remarkable ... he liked the work.  He would let me walk right up to him and halter him each day without a fuss.  I think he enjoyed the extra oats before and after the rides. 

I made the paper too!  Check it out ...Marty is famous now!  :)

An unmatched team

Spent some time over the weekend going down the road with Pete and Marty.  They didn't mind the bells, we got harnessed up fine, and off we went.  It all went smooth.

And then ... for the first time ... I think I got to see what an unmatched team looks like.

Let me preface this with a quick note that this team would be perfect for a leisurely hay ride for the family.  The both step out well.  They respond to pressure on the lines.  You could definitely do a lot worse.  However, this was the first wagon ride in a long time that I didn't have a good time.  I spent the whole time correcting the horses.  This was a new experience for me and made me miss my girls.

So what makes an unmatched team?

At the start of this ride, I noticed Pete (the bigger horse) was lagging back.  I had noticed this when I worked them on the sled, but Pam can do this too, so I didn't think it was a big deal.  Pete is a bigger horse and apparently has a slower pace.

My wagon has chains to each side of the evener so that if one horse is pulling out stronger than the other they will actually end up pulling the weight of the whole wagon.  This is a neat little trick to help make a go-getter type horse chill a bit.  It also helps keep the double tree from really swinging one way too much and causing problems in the hardware.

So right down the driveway I noticed that Pete was lagging back.  I corrected him and he would want to go into a trot.  That don't work because his trot is faster than Marty's walk.  I found myself in a weird spot.  Most horses I've worked have 2 walks:  lazy slow walk, and go-getter pulling walk.  Usually I can always just give correction and get a horse from Lazy into go-getter.  Pete wasn't having it.  It was either slow walk, or trot. 

Meanwhile, I couldn't get Marty to slow down.  He was pulling the full wagon load plus Pete too.  This made for a pretty bad wagon ride.  Instead of enjoying myself going down the road, I was constantly correcting.  Constantly trying to get Pete to match Marty.  It was a pretty frustrating experience.

Then half way through the ride, I did our stop and stand routine, where I give them a rest.  Pete wouldn't have it.  He kept taking two steps forward, then when I'd correct, two steps back.  He would not stand at all.  And while he was doing this, it started annoying Marty.  So now I had two horses that didn't want to stand.  I even went and got in front and held their lead ropes, and they were still not wanting to stand still.

Very frustrating ride.  I realized that I couldn't do wagon rides to the public if my wagon was moving back and forth as the horses act up while loading/unloading.

So I went back home,  put Pete away, and tried Marty alone on the wagon.  He did great.  I even swapped out the snaffle bit that was on his harness, with a nice Liverpool and he did exactly what I wanted.  Did a short test ride and it was great.  Maybe I'll have to use Marty alone for wagon rides.

First time ever to try and use a team that just did not work well together.  Don't know what it was.  the owner was kind of shocked and said that with him it was the exact opposite (Marty was lazy and Pete was the hard worker).  Not sure what to do to help them match better.  I'll have to ask my teamster friends!

Getting Ready for Wagon Rides - Seeing Grey(White)!!

Been a LONG TIME!  Figured I might as well kick the dust off this old blog and tell you about some of the fun I'm having.

I got asked to do Christmas Wagon Rides on Park Street again this year.  Rachael is an old lady now and enjoying retirement.  Due to work being busy, Pam is in no shape to be pulling a wagon all night.  I thought I was going to have to turn the offer down.

HOWEVER ... sometimes life puts people in your path that make things possible for you that you couldn't do otherwise.

I met a nice guy named John Stiles.  He's an avid horseman and a hell of a guy.  He happened to have a team of percheron geldings and told me that I could use them if I ever needed/wanted them.  With the request to help with wagon rides looming, I thought of John, and I asked the question.  A quick "yes" came back, and I currently have the horses here at my place.

Introducing Pete and Marty, a fantastic team of Percheron geldings!!!

Pete on the left, Marty on the right

They actually match my trailer!!!

Pete is a big ol' boy.  I haven't put a tape on him, but he's well over 18 hands.  I can't see over his back.  Marty is just a touch taller than my girls.  It's different to have some grey(white) horses around.  I'm used to my chessnut beauties, but I could get used to this.  Pete and Marty are staying with me now so that I can work them and make sure we're all ready for wagon rides.  John even sent them to me with their harnesses and collars.

Step 1 - clean them up a bit.  Draft horses are great because in many cases, you can just pull them out of the pasture and put them right to work.  The only drawback is that you gotta clean them up.  Took  me a bit to brush them out and remove all the cockleburrs, but I got them all groomed up and looking nice.

Free of mud and cockleburrs

Step 2 - harnesses.  We already pre-fit the harnesses when I picked them up, so getting the harnesses back on was cake.  These boys let me slide the collars over their heads without even flinching.  I'm very impressed with them.  

Harnessed and ready for action

Step 3 - get them on the sled.  Horses ground drove perfectly to the sled, backed into position like pros, and stood great while I hooked the tugs up.  Easy as can be.  It was so nice to be driving again.  Been too long since I did it.  The boys stepped out nice and worked well for me.  The only issue I had was that Pete (the big guy) was not stepping into the pull fully, and figiting a bit when I gave them a break.  No pawing or anything like that, but he stepped over his outside tug twice.  I was able to untangle him with ease though.

Marty on the left, Pete on the right

All in all it was a great weekend.  Looking forward to the wagon ride season.  I think these boys are gonna put smiles on a lot of folks places.  This weekend I'll be out on the road with bells on.  If you're around Campbell, that aint Santa you hear.  :)

Back behind the lines again!

Howdy from Texas!

 

Life has been pretty interesting.  I ended up having open heart surgery in July.  All went well and I recovered without complications. 

 

Now that I’m pretty far along the recovery path, I couldn’t hold off the driving itch any further.  I’m decided that I’m going to try and do the Christmas parade and Christmas wagon rides that I used to do each year.  This means I’m gonna have to get some lazy pasture ornaments into wagon pulling shape!!

 

I decided I was going to work all 3 horses at the same time just to make things easier.  Well it sure wasn’t easier.  Buck won’t step off.  He can be a stubborn butt just like his momma was.  I had him in the center of the 3 abreast formation, with cross lines from his hames out to the inside bit of the girls on the outside.  This means that when Buck won’t move, the girls step out and then turn into him.  I tried for a while to encourage him to remember what to do, but he just wouldn’t do it.  He wanted to walk behind the girls.  Ended the night without having any actual fun driving.

 

Next night I decided to just work the girls.  Pam and Rachael are my dream team!  They were a touch rusty, but fell into their old routines very quickly.  We drug the sled around the field for 45 minutes, then I went out on the road for a few minutes.  It was all easy, and fun, and everything I love about driving.  So lucky to have these horses!  I only have one picture from the night, but after a 2 year break in driving, it’s a sight for my sore eyes.  :)

Swimming through Spring

It's been a bit so I figured I'd better check in.  Especially so I can show off the barn!  I did get the metal on it and I'm very happy with it!  I still need to finish trimming it out, but it's working great!!  At first the horses wouldn't go near it, but then one day I came home from work and saw both horses just standing in it.  Such a good feeling.  No worse feeling then putting a ton of effort into something, and then feel like the parties  you were supposed to be helping don't give a darn about what you did for them.  :)



Here she is!  I left one section open so that I could feed through it if I needed.

A view from the back.  I did add gutter on this side a few days after this picture.

So there you have it ... Stage 1 of my 3 stage barn is complete.

The baby geese I got earlier this year are now grown.  I think I will miss their baby squeaks.  the goose honks are now loud and present.  Geese are certainly wonderful watchdogs!

7 total geese now thanks to 4 grown babies

This spring has been the wettest I have seen in the 10 years I've lived here.  It rained constantly from April till June.  All the local ponds and lakes are full.  I sure am glad I got the barn done before the April showers hit.  That would have been one mucky mess I would want to avoid.  I think the news said that we have gotten more rain in the first 6 months of 2015, than we did in all of 2014.  It's been WET! 

The Farmer's Almanac
So this January I was at the local Tractor Supply picking up some stuff, and I saw the Farmer's Almanac.  I've seen these for years and never thought anything about them.  This year I decided to purchase one and see what it was all about.  It had some awesome reading in it.  Talked about when to plant crops,  best days to harvest, and all kinds of interesting stuff.  It also talked about the weather.

When I read this in January, it said that we would have a very wet year, with showers all the way into July.  Due to the past 10 years of near drought conditions, I laughed it off.  Well,  look who's laughing now.  That Almanac was right!  Pretty cool to see that it actually forcasted this year pretty good.  From this point forward, I'll be picking one of those up every year!

Pam
Last weekend I drove to my friend Bev's house and brought Pam home from her year of broodmare duties.  it was very good to see her and get her home.  Turns out that she is past her breeding years.  She tested positive for a pregnancy 3 times in the past year, but when they went to ultrasound the baby, there was nothing.  The vet found some things that are not ideal, and so it pretty much means that Pam's breeding days are behind her.  She's just going to have to get used to being a work horse now.  :)  I'll try and catch a picture of her.  The horses are currently feasting on my in-laws/neighbors delicious pasture grass and so they don't come back up that often.

I plan on doing as much driving as I can in the next month.  I have some stuff going on towards the end of the summer that is going to limit me and my abilities.  This means I'm going to try to get in my horse fun now, while I'm still up and working well.  I'll post pictures as I do.  :) 

A Happy 2015 to all y'all!!

Happy New Year!  Things have been going alright out at our place.  I'll try to be brief and catch everyone up on what's been going on in my neck of the woods.

My horses:

Pam was leased out as a broodmare for the year.  She is currently living life as the diva she is.  Stalled, blankets when its cold, fed twice a day - she's gonna hate coming back to live on the farm.  She's bred and expecting a foal this next spring.

Rachael and Buck are best of friends as of lately and living it up here at home.  Due to a hectic work schedule and my health not being what it should be, they have become pasture ornaments.  I have plans to change that this year.  In the meantime, I feed them, and they look pretty.  That's about it.

It is with sadness that I report the loss of Nellie this year.  Her health has been in a slow decline since she ingested a whole bunch of hay net a few years back.  This year she was extremely lean on the nice spring grass.  We did all we could to find out what the problem was, but we ended up losing the fight a few months back.  The vet said his best guess is that the hay net either damaged her intestines, or were still wadded inside them, making it difficult for her to absorb nutrition.  This was the worst news of the year.

RIP Nellie

A barn???

Plans for Phase 1 of my barn. 

This fall I started building a barn.  The end result will be a 36 x 36 barn with 3 12x12 stalls, tack room, hay room, and feed/storage room, with a large center aisle.  In order to make this a reality,  I broke it into 3 phases.  Phase 1 - a 12x36 run in;  Phase 2 - another 12x36 run in, mirroring the first; Phase 3 - connect the two run ins and enclose it all.  See the process below.

More poles in

First poles

All Poles in the ground

Framing in work

Framed, with horses!  :)

I had some great help!

All framed up and ready to go!

Phase 1 is now all framed and just waiting on metal roof and siding.  I'm really pleased with the results so far.  Not too shabby for my first barn.  We also get the satisfaction that comes with the fact that we did it ourselves! 

A new puppy

A month ago, while out unloading a pick-up full of rock into a rather large pothole in the driveway, I turned around and was greeted by a pup.  He'd been dropped off out in our neck of the woods.  He just sat there, watching me work.  It was going to drop down into the low 30s that night, so I brought him home with me.  His name is Duke, and he now has a home with us.

The night I found him.

He's made himself quite comfy at our place.

Christmas Wagon Rides on Park Street

This year I didn't have my horses and wagon ready for the wagon rides.  I was pretty bummed that I was missing it for the 2nd year, but then I got a phone call.  The folks who were bringing the wagons and horses needed a driver for one of the nights.  I got offered the spot, and gladly took it.

A nice team of paint horses pulling a home-made vis-a-vis.  Great night!

I got to work a team of awesome paint horses.  they were much smaller than my drafts, but they pulled like a dream.  These horses loved to trot.  I've never driven a team with so much get up and go.  It was pretty awesome.  Much much different than the death march my Belgians do when pulling for the 2nd - 3rd hour.  Had a great time.  Next year I plan on being back, but this time with my own team again.

Plans for the future

The biggest plans I have are to get the horses working again.  I gotta get these horses out of their "pasture ornament" frame of mind and back working.  This will also mean training Buck.  All he really needs is hours on him.  This year I plan on doing that.

December 2013 Update

It's been a while since I updated the blog, and there's a good reason for it ... ... ... I haven't been doing too much in my estimation.  But after a good prodding from my sweet mother, I figured I'd better keep people in the loop of my on-goings.

This year has been a busy one.  I've been working on a Masters degree in Systems Engineering.  That came to a head with my senior thesis that I had to write this year.  I started in June, and finished last month.  The wonderful news is that I am done, and next week I'll graduate.  HOORAY!  It's a great sense of accomplishment to have that done.  HOWEVER,  all that time working on school has to be taken from family, life, and horses.

I also had an issue with my elbow last month.  For some reason, it got all red and swollen.  I had to be put in the hospital for 5 days.  They treated it like a staff infection and it went away.  We still have no idea what it was (cultures came back with nothing), or what caused it (no indication of anything out of the ordinary).  I'll tell you, it sucks being stuck in a hospital when you don't feel sick.

I have done some horse stuff.  Through the past few months, I have ridden Buck a few times out on some trails.  Pictures below are the proof!  He does well with a group of horses, but he is not confident and has to follow other horses.  In a group setting he does fine as a follower, but he sure won't lead.  He's got a herd sense about him that I am unsure how to fix.

This is Buck on his first trail ride!  I stayed in the saddle the whole ride ... not bad.

Ride #2.  All went well.

A few weeks back I attempted to drive the horses to start getting ready for Christmas rides on Park Street in Greenville TX.  This is an event I have always done, and love to do.  Unfortunately, as I started driving the horses again, I realized that all the time away from them has not been good to them.  I have a spoiled group of horses that do not want to work at all.  Driving the girls was fine for the first 15 minutes, but after that Pam was being openly defiant at wanting to go back out to pasture.  It was sad to see.  It also reminded me of this past spring when I did a horse pull and they refused to pull for me.  After working them a second time with the same results, I had to make a call that I didn't want to make.  Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to do the Christmas rides this year.  It is a setting with lots of people, and I have to have well behaved horses so that we don't have any incidents.  It was a tough decision to make, and I hope Dennis Mathis will forgive me for having to bail and invite me back next year.  It will be sad to be home those weekends this year.

This picture is from last year.  It was on the front page of the paper today advertising for the wagon rides.  Very sad that I had to back out this year.

Another thing I did last week was to get our winter hay.  I am proud to be the father of a boy who is finally big enough to handle a bale of hay on his own.  My son Riley really pulled his own this year, and it was a big help to me.  I think he was kind of proud of our work.

My son being proud of the load he helped load.

Aside from all the other stuff going on in my life, I've been having personal struggles.  I'm a young pup (turned 37 this year), but for some reason, I sure don't feel like one.  I'm feeling old.  My body feels to be growing weaker, and my energy/stamina seems to be vanishing.  My whole life I've always felt invincible, like nothing could stop me, but I feel my mortality very much these days.  A year ago I was all gung ho about working the horses and did whatever it took to have them ready, but this year, I just don't seem to have the energy and drive to get the time in they need.  I've been struggling with this.  I've heard stories about metabolism changes in guys around the 40 year mark, and I'm wondering if that's what I'm dealing with.  Any way you slice it, it sucks.  It sucks to not have the energy to do the things you want.  It sucks to get winded after walking a single flight of stairs, or after running a short distance.  It sucks to work a defiant horse and have to quit before you should because you just don't have the energy to continue.  I'm kind of a natural kind of guy, so I'm typically against energy drinks and pills and the like.  I just want my body to keep working the way I'm used to.  As it stands, it seems like I'm sitting here watching myself deteriorate into a weak, sickly thing.  It's a horrible thing to watch.

The good news is that I'm trying to get to the bottom of things and return to my normal self.  I just gotta find a path that can get me there that isn't some kind of gimmick to make someone else some money.  Probably going to start walking/running on a treadmill or something.  We'll see how it goes.

I do plan on taking my family and some friends for a wagon ride up and down Park Street in Greenville on Christmas Eve.  I've done  this the past few years and it's a great tradition.  I can at least post some pictures of that when I do it.

Thanks for listening to my personal ramblings.  In short,  I haven't posted much here, because I haven't been doing much with the horses.  They just eat and look pretty.  Hopefully I can change that and get them earning their keep again.  

My friend Pat Chase: Haying with horses

I thought I'd do some bragging on my friend Pat.  Pat Chase recently acquired a second team of horses, and with them, he's really taken to hay with them.

Pat Chase's 4-up raking hay!

Pat uses his horses 4 abreast to pull 2 ground driven side delivery hay rakes.  It's a really sweet rig and it works great.  The horses are hooked to a forecart, and then off the back of the forecart is a big spreader bar with the 2 side delivery rakes on either side.  This rakes all the hay towards the center for one nice windrow.

Here is a video of Pat's horses in work:

http://youtu.be/Ot0r7IVbL6A


Pat generated some interest as people saw him raking his hay like this, and he ended up getting an article written on him.  Click on the link below to read all about it.  There's a lot of great pictures taken in this article:

Click here for the article

This weekend Pat is baling another 6 acres.  He'll be using the horses to rake it all.  It's an open event for anyone who may like to see this in action.

Great job Pat!  I'm completely proud of what you're doing.  Definitely glad to have you as a friend and a fellow teamster!

Riding Buck For The First Time

Saturday I found myself with some spare time, and I figured I should make good use of it and work with Buck a bit.  Buck is 4, and it's high time he quit being just a pasture ornament.  Since he's my smallest horse at 16 hands, I want to make him my riding horse.

Note:  Just a reminder that I may know a few things about driving, but I really don't know much about riding under saddle.  I'm kinda doing what I feel with some good advice from one of my favorite mentors, the wagon teamster, Bob Skelding.

It turns out Bob is doing some horse breaking of his own, and the timing of both of us doing this at the same time has been great.  You can read about Bob's efforts here:  Link Here

So I got Buck out of the pasture, and put him in the round pen.  Buck is easy to catch and is quite human savvy.  The first thing I did was pull out my trusty training stick and did some ground work with him.  Basic desensitization and then some flexing, body movement.  I ended by lunging him a bit.  His mind was on me (although always looking to make sure the mares were nearby in the paddock).

I saddled him up, and put on the bridle.  Buck did lots of tonguing on the bit, so I let him stand for a bit as he got used to it.  (I have had a bit in his mouth before, but it's not something he's grown used to yet)  With the saddle on him,  I did some practice mounts, and eventually did jump up in the saddle while he was tied.  Buck was laid back and relaxed, and didn't care about me climbing up on him, or the feel of the saddle.  Love that draft cold blood!

Buck with Saddle and Bridle on

The next thing I did, was new to me, but I got it from Bob Skelding.  Instead of just hoping on and riding, I did some ground driving.  I hooked my long lines up to the bit, and I drove buck around the round pen.  The purpose of this is to let him feel the bit in his mouth as I turn him.  Had Buck had a problem with this, I'd rather it happen with me on the ground behind him, than in the saddle on his back.  But, true to his nature, Buck didn't care at all.  He understood what the bit meant right away, and didn't balk at it or fuss.  Perfect reaction.

This led to me climbing up on his back again, ready for my first ride on him.  I was working alone, which probably isn't the safest thing to do, but I pressed on.  After I was on his back, I leaned down and unsnapped the lead rope.  We then proceeded to ride around the round pen.  It was awesome.  Buck was quite unsure at first, but he knew his queue's, and he followed them.  The reassurance he got from me let him know he was doing the right thing.  Within 10 minutes we were doing figure 8's in the round pen.  Buck also stopped and backed pretty well.  With behavior like that ... why not head out of the round pen, right?  So we did.

Buck has herd anxieties!!  I mounted and started riding perfectly outside the round pen.  But as I rode away from the girls, he reached about 75 yards away from them and got VERY hesitant.  He was trying not to walk forward any more.  I kept coaxing him, and turning him ever so slightly to keep him moving forward, which worked.  However, I knew once I turned him around to walk back the other direction, he was going to act up a bit.  As I turned him around, I choked up on my lines, and sure enough, that boy LEAPED a few giant bounds towards the girls.  Luckily, my saddle is an aussie, and those wings are GREAT!  on the 3rd giant leap I pulled his head to the side for a 1 reined stop, and he stopped perfectly.  We then walked back, turned around, and redid it all over again.  He got better and better.

Buck after his ride

After a good 45 minutes in the saddle, I decided that was enough for his first time.  He stood great for me to unmount.  I then tied him and he stood great as I took the bridle off.  HOWEVER ... at that time the mares decided to leave the paddock and go out to pasture.  Buck started to lose it because they were leaving him.  As I was trying to take his saddle off, he started side passing away and over me, which is bad.  So ... buck got tied off.  I tied buck up and let him stand in his saddle till he calmed down.  That horse came unglued.  He was rearing, pushing, pulling, slamming his side into the tree, doing anything he could think of to get free.  For 4 hours he acted like that.  I guess he really likes those mares.  :)  This kind of behavior is exactly why I use rope halters!  No way he was getting away ... he had to behave to get out of this one!

Finally, he calmed down, and stood great again.  Once I saw that, I'd go out and pet on him.  I took his saddle off, pet him some more, brushed him out, and just spent time with him.  I then let him stand for another 30 minutes.  He was great.  So finally, after about an hour of good standing, I did let him go back into the paddock.

So anyway ... that's how my day went.  It was GREAT to be sitting in the saddle.  I'm very excited about the future with him!!  Next time I'll try to get a photographer to take a picture.  :)

New Hub installed on the #9 Sickle Mower

Over the weekend I got out and installed the new hub on my mower.  My friend Pat was up in Amish country and found a store that had all kinds of new mower parts.  I'll post the info later when I have it on hand.  Very glad to have it all back together.  In order to jack it up, I had to use some of my southern engineering.  Easy to jack up a mower with some wood and a knowledge of how the teter-totter works.  :)  Now I'm ready to finish cutting the field.  YAY!

EDIT:  Here's the information on the parts place where the new hub was purchased.

Mullet's Machinery & Parts LLC - Reconditioning Horse Drawn Manure Spreaders & Mowers
6870 S. State Route 5
Topeka, IN 46571

LeRoy, Leon, LaVern
Phone: 260-593-2960
Fax: 260-593-0551

There it is.  The new hub, with new key pin and axle pin.  You can see where the actual wheel broke in places when the hub broke.

Now here's how you jack up your mower using scrap wood from the back of the truck.  :)

4th of July Parade in Greenville Texas

This year I did got to participate in the 4th of July Parade in Greenville, TX.  Those of us that participate in the Christmas wagon rides on Park St. brought our horses and wagons to represent the Park St. Historical Society and plug the wagon rides.  It was a great day, and the horses were well behaved.  I had my trusty sidekick Jacob Riddle, and I think we all had a good time.  Enjoy the pictures!

This was at the end of the parade.  Patriotic ... yes ... horse friendly ... no.  :)

All loaded up and ready to go!

Here we come!

Happy riders waving to the crowd

A shot from the side.

 To do this parade, I put Rachael in her Easyboot Boa boots.  They work so great.  She couldn't do it without them.

The only thing I didn't like about this parade, was that it started and stopped every 10 feet for the entire length of the parade.  It's REALLY annoying when driving a horse wagon to start and stop every 10 minutes.

All in all it was a great day!