Pickford Connection

Having a summer home in Cedarville Michigan for the past years caused me to drive through a little farming community called Pickford. Commonly called Pitchfork Michigan. One farm on the way always had herds of horses running all around the old farmhouse. I thought, "Someday I am going to stop and meet those people". And one day I did. I drove up a long driveway between 2 pastures full of horses and left my van running outside the house to go see if anyone was home. Before I even got into the front porch, I heard this "Come on in!" in a loud voice. So I hesitantly opened the door and there stood this tall white haired man with a beard and blue, blue eyes and a belly looking a little like Santa Clause. "Sit down, sit down. What would you like, coffee, tea, or hot chocolat?" I said some tea would be nice and off he went to the kitchen. As I looked around, it was truly an old bachelor's house. Horse tack and saddles all over the livingroom floor, food under the table, and nothing that matched anything. For 3 hours he told me his life story about how he grew up here with his family, moved to Lansing to work in the car factory, got married, had 5 kids, and then his wife left him for a life of debauchery with drugs and alcohol. He bought some horses to keep his kids busy (so he said but really it was because he loved horses). He would always say he was horse poor, because it cost a lot to keep horses.

When I met him, he had retired and moved back home to Pickford. I explained that my daughters and I all loved horses and that my youngest wanted to buy one. I asked him if the horses outside were palominos. They were beige horses with blond manes. I thought I was being quite smart knowing the breed. Well, he laughed out loud and said they were a little big to be palominos. They were Belgiums. Work horses. Oh, I felt a little silly as he explained they wouldn't be too good for riding. He said he did have one thoug
h that he thought may be able to be ridden. At this point, I think he was feeling a little sorry for my ignorance. By the time I left, we had become good friends. When I returned outside I realized that I forgot to turn my van off. Good job this was a few years before the price of gas jumped.

And so started a long, wonderful relationship with Dale. I remembered his name after that by thinking about Clydesdale's. Kiesha, my youngest daughter, and my granddaughter Kayla, and I would all go down and spend weekends on the farm. Now, there is not much going on in Pickford, so the neighbours would call in the morning because they would see my car and ask who had slept over. And Dale would love to pull there legs and tell them it was his girlfriend from Canada. They would then proceed to ask him where we slept. He loved to lead them on for awhile. And then being the good Christian man that he was, he would explain that it was a 5 bedroom house. Dale taught us a lot about horses, and Kiesha would sleep in the barn awaiting the birth of a new baby horse which she would help deliver and milk the mom to get the baby started.


When Dale died of cancer a few years later, we inherited 5 horses, 3 Belgiums and 2 Standardbreds which Dale got just for Kiesha. The problem we had then was, WHERE DO WE PUT THE HORSES!!! Seeing as we live downtown Sault Ste. Marie, it wasn't too feasible to have them in our back yard. And to pay room and board for 5 horses, especially 3 Belgiums, who eat twice as much as a normal horse, was not a financial possibility. One of my clients offered her barn for our use because she said she would love to look out the windows of her new farmhouse and see horses. But that we would have to go out there (half hour away) to feed them and put them in and out every day. That would be at least a 3 hour a day commitment. Ouchh!! As if I am not busy enough!!!



Then she mentioned that maybe the Mennonites would take care of them. Quite a few families have moved to Desbarats from southern Ontario. They had come over to fix my friend's barn roof and their windmill. Her husband was nominated to go speak with them on my behalf. I waited in the car. Mennonite men do not do business with women usually. He told us that he would think about it and we should come back next week. You learn that nothing happens very quickly in Mennonite world. And so we returned the next week and were told that they would take the horses for a fee which was a fraction of what anyone else charges. My friend's husband, who was acting on my behalf, asked if he would like to talk with me but the mennonite man said no. So horses were moved across the border and that was yet another beventure but not for the telling now. Four years later, we are now great friends with the Mennonites and they even teach us how to make cheese and things.