Tractors and Horses and History

 

Tractors and Horses and History

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What I really want is to talk about tractors and horses. But, I’ll start with history.

I almost got in a fight over history the other day. I came so close. I managed to stop my mouth just in time.

I’ve always liked history. Back a thousand years ago when I went to Northern, one could immerse oneself in one’s field of study, no minor, just lots and lots of history. So, I did just that.

In terms of the job market back then, it was pretty much a worthless field I plowed. In terms of learning to see the world around me, it was invaluable.

 One learns to take nothing at face value.  What you see is the surface. Black/White?  Either/Or? They don’t exist. Every person, place, thing, event can be, should be, looked at from several points of view.

What happened the other day that got me in hot water was just this. My friend, who is an astute thinker in most cases, made one of those dangerous black or white statements, concerning historical events, one sided. Immediately my mind flooded with a hundred points of both history and science with which to refute her words. I, foolishly, started with my first example. She cut me off, “I know I’m right. I read it.”

Well, shut my mouth. I know not to argue with that. Mostly, I was surprised. Astonished. I also am aware that we all have one or two narrow-minded tunnels and that I have my own.

Being able to see 82 different points of view around XYZ surely makes it hard to see my world in definitive, cut and dried statements. I wouldn’t trade my awkward multi-viewpoint ability for the apparent assurance that others seem to get with more simple points of view.

In a different field, out here on the outer edge of town, most plots of land have a tiny section for growing corn or cane or agave. Compared to a Montana wheat field, you might say, “Oh, you mean a garden plot.”

I do not spend my day hanging out the window to see what’s happening along the street. A diesel engine idling outside the window will draw me over to see what’s going on.

The latest tractor to catch my eye was not nearly as old as the one pulling the two-prong harrow in the lot across the street a few weeks ago. This one was old, minus most of the original color, had obviously never been sheltered in a shed, but still had discernable print.

I took the make and model number to my computer and found the tractor to be a 1975 Ford. Only fifty years old. This tractor had hydraulics to lift the harrow at the end of the row rather than a rope to pull it out of the ground. As soon as the field to the north of our wall was suitably tilled, the tractor took off, returned with a corn planter. At the speed things grow here, I figure next month I’ll see corn tassels pop over the wall.

I don’t know if anyone here in Oconahua still plows with horses. Probably so. I have only the limited view of part of my street. But many men ride horses to work. And, to the bar. And, for romancing.

The dappled gray, the brown mare and the burro across and down one lot have cleared that plot of every blade of green. I noticed a young man, about ten years old, at a guess, who moves the horses to a different place when there is nothing left to eat. With the rains, grass grows quickly. Three or four days later, the horses are back, mowing every leaf and blade.

Up the street two plots, there is a beauty of a bay mare, I’m fairly sure it is a mare. She’s awfully round so I expect to see a babe by her side soon.

I love that I get to see glimpses of the past. I cannot romanticize the past. When that Ford tractor was new, most of the men here worked up at the mines. When that young boy who moves the horses from plot to plot comes of age, he will probably go to University in Guadalajara. Everything changes. With change comes what we label good or label bad as well as 82 points between.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

July 10, 2025

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