Homesteading: Form Follows Function

My friend who would rather hang out with me than eat…

This is our “junior” stallion Quartz, who is three, going on four years old now. Born on the farm and raised on the farm. This stallion is as kind and trusting as you could ever hope for. This fall, Quartz spent 60 days away from home at a trainer’s place, and just came home. Above, he just looks like a sleepy old guy. Anything could be further than the truth.

This horse is a gem. He has known nothing but kindness, consistency and love, and he gives that back one hundred percent. But we can’t take full credit, his lineage has been bred for temperament and athleticism for thousands of years. Look what happens when he “wakes” up.

Simply put, Quartz is an example is why we breed horses. It is a grand passion. We are continuing on a tradition with this amazing breed, the Lusitano, that goes back two thousand years or more.

Lusitanos date back to Roman times. The DNA from the bones of Roman chariot horses traces back through this breed’s blood right up to the present day. Jill and I, and other breeders like us, work to preserve this piece of living history. It is truly a remarkable gift to be able to genetically engineer animals through the process of time honored and honed skills of selectively choosing specific characteristics over less desired ones, and then locking in those traits through line breeding.

We have been breeding horses for decades. But we discovered this breed almost two decades ago, before which we were breeding Percheron Draft horses. We have built up our Lusitano herd horse by carefully selected horse. Most came originally from Portugal or Brazil. We study the genetics, the lines, the “morphology” of our horses, their temperament, and suitability for purpose (in our case, competitive Dressage). We raise them carefully. Our hopes and dreams are invested in the next generation. We have four generations of horses on the farm, and our experience goes back five generations of this amazing breed. Am I proud of what we have accomplished? You bet I am! Farmers have been doing this for thousands of year. This is domestication. Form follows function.

Whether it be horses, chickens, dogs, goats or cattle -quality animals are a joy, and you get what you either pay for or breed for. Purpose bred quality animals represent breeds which with care will continue to pass on their desirable traits for generations. Animal breeding is one of the amazing cultural and technological skills that humans have developed throughout the ages. These breeds often are wrapped in our cultural heritage and identity. I believe that skilled breeders are unappreciated, and I wish that more people recognized just how important they are. It takes knowledge, thought, skills, resources, commitment, time and a bit of luck to be a great breeder.

So, raise a toast to our present day farmers and animal breeders, who practice humane husbandry standards that we can all be proud of, who breed for quality and who take the time to do it right!

“We have neglected the truth that a good farmer is a craftsman of the highest order, a kind of artist.” – Wendell Berry

When purchasing breed stock or stock for some functional purpose, the key is to do your due diligence. That means research, engaging in forums and speaking with breeders. Know your own needs. For instance, chickens are ubiquitous with homesteading, small farms and backyards. But there are many ways to raise and keep chickens. And chickens come in all shapes and sizes. Do you need a breed that is cold hardy or heat tolerant, will they be in a coop or free-range, so do you want them friendly or flighty? Do you want beauty, egg production or meat production - or some compromise in-between? How many chickens? Type of coop? Feeding strategies? Of course, trial and error plays into it but in the end, doing some homework can save one time, money and heartache. In the process, you will become a good farmer, which is something to take pride in.

To end this, a bit more about our wonderful horses.

Here are Quartz’s parents: His dam, Caranja (right) and his sire, Jade (left):

Jade - at a dressage show, plus Caranja and I at a Lusitano exhibition - this is a historic Portuguese calvary uniform.

Caranja was imported in-utero from Brazil, and we have owned her since she was a filly. At 17 years old, she is the matriarch of the farm and runs the mare herd with an iron hoof. No horse is perfect, and her weakness is her bottoms (thinner bone in legs and smaller hoof), but she is otherwise quite “modern” - meaning more suitable for dressage rather than the bullfight.

Our senior stallion Jade was imported as a yearling from Portugal. He stamps his foals with his steady personality and calm presence (and many with his frosted buckskin color). He also passes on his conformation and “gaits”- that is, his way of moving, which is what the Lusitanos are also famous for. Note that Jade has more bone in his legs and large, solid hooves, but tends towards being a bit “stocky”.

Quartz illustrates the importance of careful crossing. He has the bone and hoof of Jade, as well as his personality, but is more “modern” in frame and build like his dam. He represents the “type” or conformation of Lusitano that we have been breeding for. If you look back and forth between the photos of Quartz, Jade and Caranja, you can see aspects of both sire and dam in their “get”.

Finally, here is Quartz’s younger brother: “Topazio CAL”. He is a “weanling,” meaning that he was born in the 2023 year and is no longer nursing on his dam. Another big boy, again illustrating the benefits of this specific “Jade out of Caranja” cross. When you find a cross that works, you keep on keeping on! Our grand hope is to one day exhibit Quartz and Topazio together both as a riding and driving pair of stallions. Lusitano stallions are typically kept intact (not gelded) so long as they do not have a genetic defect, and are often shown and worked together. But just don’t let them look each other in the eye!

The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.” – Masanobu Fukuoka

Having been “homesteaders” and small farmers for decades now, the passion for the animals is something we share with so many others, which together form one of the communities that we are grateful to belong to. The depth of knowledge of small farmers is mind-blowing. That they are often so willing to share their knowledge with others is one reason why we gravitate to surrounding ourselves with these like minded souls. Small farmers generally do not compete with each other, but rather compete against the elements, random hardships, setbacks and fate. One key thing that makes them so different from most other folks.

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“They say you can’t make a living on farming… but doing anything else isn’t really living at all.” – Herman Melville