Originally published on LinkedIn on 2019-09-24.
I never met my great grandfather, but I had this picture from him. And from time to time I wonderd how it would be to till a field like in the old days.
The thing is, the whole farm was leased for years now. But I have always had an eye on the fields and watched as the condition became worse and worse. At the same same time I found something special at my farm. It was some old horse harness. Wow, could it be that this where the old horse harness from the picture I had?
After some cleaning I would say, it could be. I started to think about a horse on the farm. But who can impart some knowledge of the old days? I asked some old people around, everybody could remeber, but nobody was able to teach. Fortunately there was a small community in Austria which tries to preserve some knowledge and bring it into the modern days. This community initiated a certified training course, and I joined it together with my wife. It was a two-year training course, yes you read right. TWO YEARS for a training.
Why 2 years. Yeah well, there are season over the year. You have to mow gras, plow, harrow, till and so on. And one very important part of the training was to really do it. Not just in theory. So it is not like a PowerShell training where you can learn the things you need in just 5 days in a well prepared virtual environment. It’s outside in the nature, with your own horses. So first you have to learn how to teach your horse, and at the end you will know you learned a lot about yourself.
We got knowledge about how to train our own horse in a modern way. Animal welfare is very important! In the meanwhile our horse is like a family member. But it is also important to get the job done. It’s a very long process to replace a good trained draft horse.
And over the last 2 years we learned how to get things done over a whole season, just with draft horses.
We also grew plants on the field, just that the fields are green. Some years we tilled more than 2ha flowering plants at spring. We could observe an amazing increase of insects and much better soil conditions.
I would not say the old days where better. But it was amazing to get an idea how my great grandfather worked with his team.
2 years in modern technologies, like in the IT, can be long. Sometimes a technology got replaced by something better in two years. But when you work on a field with your team, it’s completely different. You slow down, you work with equipment which could be hundret years old, but it still works. So I really slowed down at home.
I also reduced my working hours at my job and I just worked 4 days a week instead of 5. But I got the job done. Also in my new job I work 4 days a week. And also here I get things done in 4 days. Now it is easier for me, to work focused on topics during worktime. I think it’s also because I’m really realaxed after work at the farm. Very often an Idea related to my job comes in my mind when I work with my horses on the farm. I also recognice that from time to time creativity and innovation is made exactly here, when I am in “slow-mode”.
postscript;
:-D We got the exam done. Now we are “Zertifizierte Arbeitstierführer” which is something like a “certified draft horse leader”, some basis to learn every day something new ….
Let’s see what the future brings… at least there are some ideas growing
aknowledgements: