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Whose ox is gored?

NutmegCT

Great Pumpkin
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Some scenes from our annual 1830s Harvest Festival at Old Sturbridge Village.

IMG_0604.jpg


https://s224.photobucket.com/user/freemangarden/slideshow/Harvest Weekend 2015?sort=3

First photo is yours truly and other volunteers, sorting veg before storing in the root cellar. Afterward, ox team competitions, plowing contest, winnowing, broom making, produce exhibition. By Sunday afternoon, temps had dropped into the 40s, and we enjoyed (?) snow squalls.

Fortunately - no ox was gored! (tho' one family was a bit undone: they were riding in an ox cart, when the ox was stung by a bee, bolted, and flipped the cart over. )

Tom M.
 
Looks like a good time was had by all. I have thought about volunteering for our local museums reenactment days before, just have never gotten around to it.
 
Looks like a lot of fun (& a lot of work, too!).

what's the difference between an ox and regular cattle?
 
Oxen are trained to work in a yoke, respond to a teamster, they tend to be trained in pairs, they tend to be cut, and they get to wear shoes. Other than that they are the same as cattle, so you could say they are cattle that have just been trained to work.
 
Just so!

Oxen are trained to work in a yoke, respond to a teamster, they tend to be trained in pairs, they tend to be cut, and they get to wear shoes. Other than that they are the same as cattle, so you could say they are cattle that have just been trained to work.

Bull calf (of any breed) is born, neutered within a few weeks, and is called a steer. When trained to work, the steer becomes an ox. Usually trained from the first year in pairs, sharing a yoke; if one is unable to work, the other is confoozled and usually can't work.

Basic commands:

Boys, come up (walk forward)
Gee (turn right)
Haw (turn left)
Back (walk backward
Whoa! or Ho! (stop)

Back in the day, a 12 year old boy would be expected to drive an ox team.

T.
 
A little inauthentic😀. The middle pair is a pair of Brown Swiss Steers. They were not imported into the U.S. Until 1869. Busy Bee Syndicate Jasper Reserve National Brown Swiss Champion is one of my patients. Showed quite a few in 4H as a kid.
Paul
 

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A little inauthentic. The middle pair is a pair of Brown Swiss Steers. They were not imported into the U.S. Until 1869. Busy Bee Syndicate Jasper Reserve National Brown Swiss Champion is one of my patients. Showed quite a few in 4H as a kid.
Paul

Sharp eyes!

Several of those teams came to us just for the competition day, from New Hampshire, Vermont, etc. We actually had twelve teams altogether; visitors really enjoyed the "old tech".

One of the plowing competitions was won by a woman and her team. When the judges congratulated her, the woman yelled "And I did it in a dress!"
 

My daughter was in Spain, as an exchange student, last semester.
While in a little town called Ciudad Rodrigo (where they run with bulls also) she witnessed one of her American classmates get trampled and gored by a very angry bull. only thing that saved his life was a brave Spanish kid who leaped over the fence and grabbed the bull by the tail & held on.

The kid that was gored received about 80 stitches and probably wasn't able to sit down for quite sometime.
 
A few years ago we were in Pamplona a week before the running of the bulls. That said, I am still confused - Who is Gord?
 
"Who is Gord?"

He was Bill Clinton's VP.
 
Gordo is an Okie!
 
O please - someone notice - Clinton VP - not Gordo but Gordoe - someone?
 
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