Volume 4 • No. 13 • Full Moon • July 11, 2025
Cycle of Light • 24" • acrylic on wood • 2025
Blue Squares in Motion • 10" Octagon • acrylic on wood • 2025
Julietta • 10" Octagon • acrylic on wood • 2025
An excerpt from
I Didn't Learn Anything at Horse Progress Days
A Brief Reminder to Look Both Ways by Taylor Reed
Photo by Benjamin Hersh via Unsplash
...You see, the whole gathering rests on pushback to a trend. Somewhere along the timeline of industrialization, farming equipment didn’t appear to require as much attunement to the landscape. The tractor and other forms of agricultural machinery grew larger and more powerful, transcending limits thanks to the incredible energy bound within fossil fuels.
Nimbleness and efficiency were no longer primary metrics of quality. Why prioritize those constraints when diesel offers more oomph than one might ever need?
And engineering for accessible maintenance? That’s less of a concern when profits and equipment sales are the end goal rather than equipping communities with tools they can repair and fine-tune themselves.
Here’s the rub, and it’s a long one, so bear with me. When fossil fuel availability becomes a concern, or the effects of widespread combustion start to skew natural patterns that all things rely upon, or inequality and concentration of wealth and power drive localized livelihoods further and further out of reach, the slicked-ease that fossil fuel-dominated agriculture represented begins to seize. That’s when more people hunger for alternatives.
Those alternatives are not fully fleshed-out systems from the past or wholly unproven future technologies. There are spaces where those two, looking back in time and looking forward, meet. Again, I wasn’t there at the event. If I was, I’m sure I would have learned, and one of my areas of learning would likely be where and how exactly my idyllic imagining of the event smacks against reality. Still, the premise of Horse Progress Days strikes me as one of those alternative spaces...
The Warp — Ideas and Inspiration
|| 1 || Here's a nice little dispatch from France—short musings from a visitor to a small horse-powered farm in Ariège. It's a straightforward account with anecdotes and specifics that clearly emerge from a first-hand visit.
Amid the personal notes, it references a Canadian write-up that offers deeper historical context and a broader scope. That one's a fascinating read, but it's tough to compete with endearing zingers (from the first dispatch) like this:
"Tractors also never make mini tractors by themselves, but horses do."
|| 2 || If you want to learn more about horse-powered farming, or other forms of growing food with less intensive mechanizing and/or fossil fuel dependency in your area, AND you'd like to do it in person, you're in luck. There's an in-person conference coming up next month in Glen Arbor: the Northern Michigan Small Farm Conference. Don't hold me to this, but at a glance I'd wonder if Eric Pawlowski, who's presenting "A Biological Path from Conventional to Ecological Production," and has roots with the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA), has input, or any of the panelists speaking on "Integrating Agroforestry Practices on Your Farm." You can get tickets here to find out and see for yourself.
|| 3 ||My first-hand brush with horse-powered farming never came to be, mainly due to everything happening around the Fourth of July. When I think of the Fourth of July, one of the first things that comes to mind is Sufjan Stevens, thanks to the song from the ten-year-old album Carrie & Lowell. Just a note—if you're looking for a patriotic picker-upper of a tune, Fourth of July absolutely will not scratch that itch. Another note—Sufjan, a Michigan-born artist with ties to northern spots like Petoskey and Interlochen, just turned fifty. Wild.
The Weft — News and Events
We’re heartened by a wide-range of expressions of resilient communities and gatherings. Here’s a smattering of regional events and happenings that reflect that diversity, collected for your consideration. Choose your own adventure!
|| 1 || Upcoming Talks at Bay View (Petoskey):
Temple Grandin - Visual Thinking. Thursday, July 31st, at 7:30pm.
Mary Berry, along with Maggie Keith, Justin and Noah Rashid - Building an Economy for Small and Mid-Size Farmers. Tuesday, August 5th, at 4:30pm.
Robin Wall Kimmerer - Keynote Address, Braiding Sweetgrass. Thursday, August 7th, at 7pm.
|| 2 || Ice Storm Farm Relief Fund—With farmer livelihoods under threat, Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities, Crosshatch Center for Art and Ecology, the Local Food Alliance, and the Northeast Michigan Healthy Food Initiative have partnered for a fundraiser to help the region recover. Money raised will be distributed to impacted farms through a simple application process, providing much needed assistance to those impacted by the storm. Click here to donate, or here if interested in applying for farmer relief funds.
|| 3 || Climate Cafes Hosted by the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America—Monday, July 21st, 3-4:30pm, and Sunday, August 3rd, 4-5:30pm, via ZOOM. "A Climate Cafe is a gentle, nonjudgmental space to simply be human. A place where you can speak from the heart—or stay quiet and just listen. A place where it’s okay to feel whatever is there. Climate grief is often entangled with many other kinds of grief, and you are welcome to bring all of it."
|| 4 || Northern Michigan Small Farm Conference Tickets Now Available!—Leelanau County. Mon-Tues, Aug. 18th-19th. Space is limited; two days packed with valuable content designed to get you excited about the remainder of the season and thinking ahead to future years. Not quite ready to commit? Click here to learn more about this year’s conference, or here to purchase your ticket now.
|| 5 || Earthcraft Skillshare. July 10th-13th, at Tillers International in Scotts, MI. "Come camp with us under the starry summer sky. Three days of hands-on ancestral, survival, music, and kids classes." Find more information or purchase tickets here.
|| 6 || Interlochen's Nature & Art Series—"A variety of two-hour programs focusing on creative exploration of nature, art, and food," offered June through August. Check out classes and dates, and register here.
|| 7 || Happenings at The Alluvion Between Now and the Next Whole Field include:Big Fun, Funky Uncle, and Wheatpaste Wednesday.
Find more information at www.thealluvion.org.
sponsored by:
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