A sure sign of Spring on the Scheckel farm outside of Seneca in the heart of Crawford County was the plowing of the garden. Three horses worked for us in the 1940s and 1950s, but gentle Dolly was the favorite for garden work. As soon as the frost was out of the ground, Mom wanted the garden plowed.

The three Scheckel boys, Phillip, Bob, and I, watched Dad harness up Dolly in the horse barn. He did it so smoothly, so quickly, like clockwork. Well, I guess if a person harnessed horses all their life, dozens and dozens of times a year, it would be a fairly routine event.

The collar was placed over Dolly’s head, the leather strap on top of the collar adjusted to make sure the collar was not too tight. Next, Dad would reach for the harness hanging from pegs on the wall behind the horses and sling the harness atop the horse and slide the hames into the slots on the collar. He straightened out all the straps, the breaching that went over the tail, and pulled the tail free. The breaching, the big strap around the rump, is the piece of the harness the horse pushes against when backing up an implement.

The belly band ran under the horse, and Dad snapped the reins into the hames. A yoke strap was attached to each side of the horse’s collar. The bottom of the yoke strap had a snap fastener. When hitched to an implement, the snap fastener attaches to the neck yoke, a three-foot wooden bar that is fastened to the horse-drawn implement tongue. That neck yoke is suspended from the collar of the harness.

The tugs are thick leather straps attached to the hames and collar and running back on both sides of the horse. A length of chain is attached to each end of the tug straps. The chain is used to hitch the horse to a singletree. The singletree is a wooden three-foot piece to which the tugs of the horse harness are fasted. The center of the singletree is attached to a doubletree.

A doubletree is a wooden swinging crossbar, to which smaller singletree bars are attached. Doubletrees are used when two horses are hitched side by side to pull a wagon or other farm machinery.

The neck yoke wooden bar had a big four-inch medal ring into which the tongue of the implement would fit. A metal stop prevented the metal ring from sliding back too far, and it was used for the horses to push against and back up any implement or wagon.

The bridle was put on last. The bridle had those blinders, or cups, that prevented the horse from seeing to the side. I always figured those blinders were used to prevent the horse from being startled by anything happening to the side. But I’m not so sure they are not used to keep dust and debris from irritating or blinding the horse. The horse is now ready to go to work.

Dolly was led out of the horse barn and hitched to the walking plow and off to the garden. Back and forth went Dolly, plow, and Dad. With both hands on the plow handles, Dad tied the reins together in a knot and placed them over his waist.

It’s a pretty picture, Dolly’s head bobbing up and down, snorting bits of misty breaths into the cool April air, and those big shoed feet clomping on the dark soil. When Dolly got to the end of the garden, Dad threw the plow on its side to disengage it from the soil. There was no need to give Dolly a rest. Turn that beast around, right the plow. and begin another furrow. Dolly could easily do a furlong. We can harken back to Anglo-Saxon times in medieval Europe. A furlong (furrow length) was the length of a furrow that a team of oxen pulling a heavy plow, breaking ground, could go without a rest. That’s a bit over 660 feet.

While holding onto one plow handle with one hand, the other hand was used to steer Dolly for a return furrow. She was a gentle beast and I loved riding on top of her, holding onto the hames.

The disc was not necessary, as there was no sod to break up. Next came the drag. Out in the fields there would be three drag sections fastened together, but the garden was so small only a single section was needed.

In early spring, the garden yielded something unique and wonderful. We never planted horseradish. Horseradish was a perennial and just came up every springtime, all by its lonesome! It was a tuber, much like a potato, but elongated and whitish-brown. Our horseradish had green leaves with white flowers.

Phillip, Bob, and I trailed behind the plow with pails picking up the horseradish. Now comes the hard part. The horseradish was taken down to the basement of the rambling farmhouse and put through the meat grinder, the same hand-turned meat grinder we used for grinding up pork and making sausages.

We cut the tuber into smaller chunks. Then we pushed the horseradish down into the mouth of the grinder with one hand, using the other hand to turn the crank. Horseradish takes a toll on one’s eyes. It didn’t take long for the eyes to water and start to burn. We would beat a hasty retreat for a few minutes, then return and go at it for another few minutes. Mom canned the horseradish. It was very good on meats and potatoes in the winter. All that work and anguish of grinding horseradish was worthwhile.

Larry and Ann Scheckel are retired teachers and live in Tomah, Wisconsin. Larry is the author of Seneca Season: A Farm Boy Remembers and Country School Days: True Tales of a Wisconsin One-Room School and Murder in Wisconsin: The Clara Olson Case. Contact: Larry Scheckel, 1113 Parkview Dr. Tomah, WI 54660 (608) 372-3362, lscheckel@charter.net.

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