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Just a couple of old time items.



Is the first a harness hane?

The second is a snaffle bit, I've used one.

Yes I believe a hames? and a twist wire snaffle.

Thanks Byron.

Centaurs

Every rancher will recognize that gate cheater. Used to pull a five wire gate hog tight.

I have harnessed a team to feed cattle enough to know its original function. But by the early sixties, they were primarily relegated to gate duty.

They were perfectly shaped for the task and even had chain attachment points from the factory. Yours appears to have spent a half century underground in climate much wetter than ours.

Harness hame. Pair go on a collar

I still have most of my grandfathers mule and horse drawn equipment. Some of it is in bad shape, but a lot of it could still be used if cleaned up.

Musta been terrible to be a horse before stainless.

Never would have needed an iron supplement though!

Before steel the hames were made out of wood.
I have used a few.







Got to start them young though.

Around here, farming would have come to a stop in the forties and fifties were it not for horse drawn equipment converted to tractor use.

I remember well Dad cutting hay with a five foot ground powered John Deere cycle mower, then raking with a John Deere ground powered nine foot side delivery rake. He pulled them with the 8N.

I still have a two row John Deere corn planter we use for the garden for corn, green beans and peas. Someone cut the oak tongue short and welded on a three point attachment.

Horse logging the Idaho Panhandle was common into the mid-70s, and low impact eco-logging with horses continued on well into the 80s.

The Sandpoint Draft Horse Show was a pageantry to behold, and local saddle clubs held horse pulls every year.

Our hames were oak, and steel.

I would not call it logging by any means. But in 1980 I drug about thirty cord of lodgepole off a ridge across a creek to a landing where we could saw it up for stove bolts. That old grey gelding was a Hell of a Horse. Probably about 1500 lbs. Tall enough that at 5' 7", I had to throw the harness up onto his back.

I was extra careful of my toes around that beast.

Great photos Saddlesore!