When I ask him if he’d remember how
to harness a horse, he says, “After all
these years? No problem.” So I ask does he
ever miss them. “Who?” he says, and I say
the horses. “Oh them.” No. he was happy
when the tractors came. “A tractor kept on
going. With the horses, you had to stop
and rest. You couldn’t push them, and horses
got sick and hot, and the flies bothered them.”

Wasn’t there anything you liked better
about the horses? “I liked their eyes, the
way they lifted their heads and whinnied when
I walked into the barn. I liked hearing
the land turning behind me as I plowed.”