Baldy and Nipper
My family lived in a suburban village in Northeast Ohio. Twice a year we would drive 500 miles to upstate New York to my grandparents’ farm. My grandparents, my Uncle Bob and Aunt Irma, and my cousins Chuck and Bill, all lived on the farm in two separate houses. Three other sets of aunts, uncles and cousins lived on other farms nearby but my grandparents’ farm was the “Jones Farm”, and it had been since it was first carved out of the woods in the early 19th century.
My father was the eldest son and so, had he not become a “large animal” (farm animal) veterinarian and settled in Ohio, he would have had first refusal on taking it over when the time came to pass it to the next generation. Conceivably, then, eventually it could have passed to me, and I think about that to this day. The farm occupied nearly six hundred acres. There was a huge dairy barn, a number of out buildings and sheds, a granary, and by the 1950’s, lots of farm machinery and tractors. Best of all for me, as a kid, it was located on a country dirt road with plenty of bumps and sharp turns. It’s paved now and identified on maps with St. Lawrence County road signs erected at both ends that read “Jones Road”.
There were several fields totaling maybe three hundred acres where crops like corn, wheat, oats and barley were planted every year, a stream and pond full of fish, an orchard and vegetable garden, an enormous tract of woodland full of wildlife and a sugar bush where they made maple syrup in earlier times. My dad and grandfather had expanded the fields to increase the usable acreage by cutting trees, removing stumps, and clearing rocks and stones with dynamite and a team of horses in the 1930’s before my father left home for Veterinary School at Kansas State University. His younger brother, my Uncle Bob, took over the running of the farm and directed its evolution from the workhorse era to the era of mechanization in the decade that followed my dad’s departure.
I spent several summers on that farm as a kid, milking cows, driving tractors and Jeeps, feeding my Great Uncle Bert’s chickens with help from my cousin Chuck, and exploring the woods, streams and abandoned roads in and around the farm with Chuck. We shot 22’s at crows and built rafts to navigate the farm stream, known as the “Crick”. It was a rich and rewarding part of my childhood and I always wanted to remain on the farm when my father came to pick me up at summer’s end.
Our family trips to the farm, as separate from my lengthy summer stays, usually involved an all night drive from Akron, Ohio, to Morley, New York on a Friday after Dad finished work---500 miles---the same distance from Akron to New York City, only we covered a northern route far from New York City.
He would spend the next couple of days sitting in a rocking chair in my grandmother’s kitchen, across the room from my grandfather, where they spoke in monosyllables about the weather and so on, smoking their pipes and grinning, agreeing on stuff or not. I think my grandfather’s views always prevailed in the debates/discussions. Then we’d drive back to Ohio all night, non-stop, and Dad would head off to work right away.
Although I was a city kid my cousins and other rural kids treated me well when I was on the farm, with occasional teasing when it was clear there were “farm things” I didn’t know how to do. It was good-natured but I did realize I was tied to another lifestyle in an urban environment.
Up until about 1960 there was one link to the old days on that farm. Under the back ramp leading to the hayloft in the barn was a stable that housed Baldy and Nipper, two aging Clydesdales that my soft-hearted Uncle Bob just couldn’t dispose of, despite my practical Presbyterian grandfather’s urging. They were the biggest horses I’d ever seen, and with the exception of their swayed backs, they looked pretty cool to me. They had huge manes and tails, and hair covered their basketball-sized hooves and their big eyes. They hadn’t pulled a plow for over ten years, or a wagon for almost that long. For a few years after they’d retired from heavy farm work occasionally they had been hitched up to wagons for hayrides and to pull sleighs in winter, all for fun. In recent years, though, they just stood in their stalls in winter. In summer they were left on their own to roam the field closest to the barn.
My mother, father, sister and I visited the farm in Spring of 1957. It had been very rainy that Spring and many of the low lying fields were flooded. My Uncle Bob always liked to get the soil turned while it was still moist and relatively soft before using the harrow, and so he always plowed earlier than some of the other farmers. That year he started too early and had managed to get one of the tractors stuck fast in the far end of a muddy field, sunk right up to the undercarriage. There was no use in sending another tractor to pull it out as it would just end up getting stuck as well, and there was no telling how long it would take for the ground to dry out enough to attempt to free it with another vehicle.
Over supper that night my grandfather had an idea. “Why doesn’t Charlie harness Baldy and Nipper and haul it out?” Charlie---my dad---knew how to drive a team of workhorses while my Uncle Bob, being too young and better versed with the new mechanized equipment, did not. Although Grandpa knew how, at that point in his life he was too old.
So the next morning, when milking was done, my father took down the old harnesses from Nipper’s stall, and the reins from the stable wall, and first led Nipper, then Baldy, out of their stalls and into the barnyard, hitched them up, and with a snap of the reins, headed down the field. He made weird clicking noises and let out short shouts that the team understood immediately, moving left, then right, lifting their feet high to get through the mud. Those ancient horses with their sway-backs, driven by my father in his plain veterinary overalls and goofy rubber boots, nevertheless looked like a chariot driven by a gladiator to me.
Following him were myself, my cousin Chuck, my uncle, my grandfather and a collection of kids and their dads from neighboring farms who’d heard the Jones’ were getting the Clydesdales out again. We stumbled and sloshed through the wet field, picking our way along the rocks and semi-dry chunks of sod.
We reached the tractor and my uncle climbed aboard while my father fixed various straps and ropes to the front of it, and Baldy and Nipper waited for the call. Uncle Bob fired up the John Deere, put it in gear and the big rear wheels started to turn. Dad clicked and shouted some more and the team moved forward, slowly but deliberately. Within five minutes their mission was accomplished and the tractor was on firmer ground. Dad unhooked everything, and my uncle opened the throttle and headed off towards the barn. Then my grandfather turned and began walking back as well.
Frankly, for me it was thrilling to watch what had transpired in those few short minutes. My father was an expert and I didn’t even know. And there I was---a city kid standing in a sea of farm kids---while my father performed an ancient skill that no one else there could do.
I have often wondered what must have gone through my grandfather’s mind as he watched his son perform for one last time something that would have been routine in his day.
Baldy and Nipper never worked another job. Within a couple of years both of them had died. My Uncle Bob buried them in a corner of the field behind the barn.
© Kent Jones 2016
My family lived in a suburban village in Northeast Ohio. Twice a year we would drive 500 miles to upstate New York to my grandparents’ farm. My grandparents, my Uncle Bob and Aunt Irma, and my cousins Chuck and Bill, all lived on the farm in two separate houses. Three other sets of aunts, uncles and cousins lived on other farms nearby but my grandparents’ farm was the “Jones Farm”, and it had been since it was first carved out of the woods in the early 19th century.
My father was the eldest son and so, had he not become a “large animal” (farm animal) veterinarian and settled in Ohio, he would have had first refusal on taking it over when the time came to pass it to the next generation. Conceivably, then, eventually it could have passed to me, and I think about that to this day. The farm occupied nearly six hundred acres. There was a huge dairy barn, a number of out buildings and sheds, a granary, and by the 1950’s, lots of farm machinery and tractors. Best of all for me, as a kid, it was located on a country dirt road with plenty of bumps and sharp turns. It’s paved now and identified on maps with St. Lawrence County road signs erected at both ends that read “Jones Road”.
There were several fields totaling maybe three hundred acres where crops like corn, wheat, oats and barley were planted every year, a stream and pond full of fish, an orchard and vegetable garden, an enormous tract of woodland full of wildlife and a sugar bush where they made maple syrup in earlier times. My dad and grandfather had expanded the fields to increase the usable acreage by cutting trees, removing stumps, and clearing rocks and stones with dynamite and a team of horses in the 1930’s before my father left home for Veterinary School at Kansas State University. His younger brother, my Uncle Bob, took over the running of the farm and directed its evolution from the workhorse era to the era of mechanization in the decade that followed my dad’s departure.
I spent several summers on that farm as a kid, milking cows, driving tractors and Jeeps, feeding my Great Uncle Bert’s chickens with help from my cousin Chuck, and exploring the woods, streams and abandoned roads in and around the farm with Chuck. We shot 22’s at crows and built rafts to navigate the farm stream, known as the “Crick”. It was a rich and rewarding part of my childhood and I always wanted to remain on the farm when my father came to pick me up at summer’s end.
Our family trips to the farm, as separate from my lengthy summer stays, usually involved an all night drive from Akron, Ohio, to Morley, New York on a Friday after Dad finished work---500 miles---the same distance from Akron to New York City, only we covered a northern route far from New York City.
He would spend the next couple of days sitting in a rocking chair in my grandmother’s kitchen, across the room from my grandfather, where they spoke in monosyllables about the weather and so on, smoking their pipes and grinning, agreeing on stuff or not. I think my grandfather’s views always prevailed in the debates/discussions. Then we’d drive back to Ohio all night, non-stop, and Dad would head off to work right away.
Although I was a city kid my cousins and other rural kids treated me well when I was on the farm, with occasional teasing when it was clear there were “farm things” I didn’t know how to do. It was good-natured but I did realize I was tied to another lifestyle in an urban environment.
Up until about 1960 there was one link to the old days on that farm. Under the back ramp leading to the hayloft in the barn was a stable that housed Baldy and Nipper, two aging Clydesdales that my soft-hearted Uncle Bob just couldn’t dispose of, despite my practical Presbyterian grandfather’s urging. They were the biggest horses I’d ever seen, and with the exception of their swayed backs, they looked pretty cool to me. They had huge manes and tails, and hair covered their basketball-sized hooves and their big eyes. They hadn’t pulled a plow for over ten years, or a wagon for almost that long. For a few years after they’d retired from heavy farm work occasionally they had been hitched up to wagons for hayrides and to pull sleighs in winter, all for fun. In recent years, though, they just stood in their stalls in winter. In summer they were left on their own to roam the field closest to the barn.
My mother, father, sister and I visited the farm in Spring of 1957. It had been very rainy that Spring and many of the low lying fields were flooded. My Uncle Bob always liked to get the soil turned while it was still moist and relatively soft before using the harrow, and so he always plowed earlier than some of the other farmers. That year he started too early and had managed to get one of the tractors stuck fast in the far end of a muddy field, sunk right up to the undercarriage. There was no use in sending another tractor to pull it out as it would just end up getting stuck as well, and there was no telling how long it would take for the ground to dry out enough to attempt to free it with another vehicle.
Over supper that night my grandfather had an idea. “Why doesn’t Charlie harness Baldy and Nipper and haul it out?” Charlie---my dad---knew how to drive a team of workhorses while my Uncle Bob, being too young and better versed with the new mechanized equipment, did not. Although Grandpa knew how, at that point in his life he was too old.
So the next morning, when milking was done, my father took down the old harnesses from Nipper’s stall, and the reins from the stable wall, and first led Nipper, then Baldy, out of their stalls and into the barnyard, hitched them up, and with a snap of the reins, headed down the field. He made weird clicking noises and let out short shouts that the team understood immediately, moving left, then right, lifting their feet high to get through the mud. Those ancient horses with their sway-backs, driven by my father in his plain veterinary overalls and goofy rubber boots, nevertheless looked like a chariot driven by a gladiator to me.
Following him were myself, my cousin Chuck, my uncle, my grandfather and a collection of kids and their dads from neighboring farms who’d heard the Jones’ were getting the Clydesdales out again. We stumbled and sloshed through the wet field, picking our way along the rocks and semi-dry chunks of sod.
We reached the tractor and my uncle climbed aboard while my father fixed various straps and ropes to the front of it, and Baldy and Nipper waited for the call. Uncle Bob fired up the John Deere, put it in gear and the big rear wheels started to turn. Dad clicked and shouted some more and the team moved forward, slowly but deliberately. Within five minutes their mission was accomplished and the tractor was on firmer ground. Dad unhooked everything, and my uncle opened the throttle and headed off towards the barn. Then my grandfather turned and began walking back as well.
Frankly, for me it was thrilling to watch what had transpired in those few short minutes. My father was an expert and I didn’t even know. And there I was---a city kid standing in a sea of farm kids---while my father performed an ancient skill that no one else there could do.
I have often wondered what must have gone through my grandfather’s mind as he watched his son perform for one last time something that would have been routine in his day.
Baldy and Nipper never worked another job. Within a couple of years both of them had died. My Uncle Bob buried them in a corner of the field behind the barn.
© Kent Jones 2016