training yoke (artifact #2)

(shown upside down)  This is probably a training or weaning yoke.  The U-shaped part is an ox bow, the block of wood is a dummy yoke (without a load-pulling ring) for one bullock, and the long stick is a handle for the trainer to control and maybe put a little load on a young animal.

This is a good place to discuss the use of wood in the home-production of tools and furniture.  A word about Civil War bricks, as a background for all these pictures, is included for good measure.

Most woods can be steamed and bent to shape.  A form that will hold them in position until dried is all one needs for this.  Hardwoods such as oak and hickory work well as I recall.  I have seen it done but have not, however, undertaken a project of this nature.  Actually there was a lot of hickory in the area.  You could find a lot of the scaly bark variety on our property that bore hickory nuts.  The term hard as a hickory nut came from the fact that they were hard to crack.  I might point out that the shoe last came in handy for cracking nuts.  We would place them on the post and swat with a hammer, carefully trying to avoid the inevitable.

My granddad from time to time would make hammer and tool handles from a piece of hickory, and you would find them drying around the smoke house prior to the final finishing and installation on tools.  Functional home-made furniture, such as baby cribs and chairs, can be made this way also.

Ash is also a very popular wood for various uses.

I believe that the weathered bricks, in the background of most pictures, are from the pre-Civil War era.  They are all hand-made brick and the size is not very uniform.  They are not as sturdy as newer kiln-fired type.  I have been buying the old bricks for 20 cent each for the flowerbeds.  These bricks are not valued for their historical value but should be preserved.  There is a good look at some of them in the picture of the hand-operated seeder and in seeder details 7, 8, and 9.

Charles Doyle  4/13/03