Maintaining Grassland with Horses Part I

摘要

The season starts earlier: Let's have a new a look at a historic picture. The first photo shows my late neighbour, Jos Kieffer, mowing alfalfa hay in the early fifties. The horses were the Ardennes mare Fanny nearside, and gelding Jul offside. Fanny and Jul were two very common names for draft horses in our region. Born in 1910, Jos farmed on a smallholding called "a Neckelches" in Teinten. Beside his duties on the farm he was also charged, together with my grandpa Francois Lecomte, of supplying hiscart horses on funeral ceremonies. Usually a single horse was hitched to the hearse, called "Doudewon" in my native language.