My grandparents traveled the country in a horse drawn camper

[ourmefa]

Hey there everyone.

Today, I have been working on gathering photos for our upcoming blog and I came across some photos that I thought you all might find interesting. They are not specifically skoolie related, but my grandparents did convert one in the 60's for their family of 9 at the time (There is not one pictured here, but I am working on getting one to post).

My grandparents traveled the country in a horse drawn camper for a number of years. My grandfather was a very interesting guy who converted a ton of vehicles over the years. Some of these are pictured below. You can find the full gallery of photos here - https://www.facebook.com/jamie.mere...10152846663770894.1073741858.710230893&type=3

Here you go! I think I may have caught their bug!

The album has some descriptions for each of the photos for those that are interested.

 

[SDR76]

Thats Awesome!!

 

[Gonce4]

WOW!!! How cool are these?... So glad you shared... Are those Clydesdales?

 

[ourmefa]

WOW!!! How cool are these?... So glad you shared... Are those Clydesdales?

My grandfather raised and bred draft horses as a hobby. Primarily he focused on draft cross breeds. His first series of horses (10 yrs in the 60's) were 1/2 Lippitt Morgan and 1/2 Percheron. I believe all of the horses in the photos I posted to this thread where Barney and Brother - they were brothers and both were 1/2 Belgian and 1/2 Morgan. They were with them the longest - I think almost 25 years. They were still pulling when he sold them to someone for some crazy price. He was very good at breeding lines that typically do not do well together.

I was driving horses by the time I was 7 yrs old. That was my first of hundreds of "jobs" with him, driving the hay trailer while he bucked bales up to one of my cousins.

Many of the implements he used to hobby farm with were fully manual. This including hay cutting implements and at one time, he even had a horse drawn square baler that some guy invented. The guy could not get anyone to buy the patent for it, and sold it too my grandfather's brother in the 1940's. It sat around until the 1980's (under cover mind you) until his brother died. He inherited everything from the his brother's farm and then resurrected the baler in the late 80's.

I hated that machine. It would always bind up as it came to the final compaction point of the bale and you had to rip it all out and reset the string tie. There is good reason no one ever mass produced it lol.

Anyway, trip down memory lane. Hard not too when I think of him. He passed away two years ago. He was an amazing dude! My grandmother is still living and still kicking. She is an amazing woman as well. They were married 63 years. You don't hear of that too often anymore. He wore overalls almost everyday of my life. I have tried to put some on a couple of times. But man, they never fit right!

 

[Rusty-SKO]

Wow. Thanks for sharing your History. What an interesting group.

I would like to see someone pull-up at a fancy RV Lodge with the horse-driven Airstream today...Nay.

 

[ourmefa]

Wow. Thanks for sharing your History. What an interesting group.

I would like to see someone pull-up at a fancy RV Lodge with the horse-driven Airstream today...Nay.

Haha - for sure, glad to go down memory lane! They were a bit out there for sure!!

LOL - I never really thought about it until today the correlation between he and I. Something rubbed off on me I guess.

 

[1olfart]

Thanks for those great pictures. I believe I'd have really liked your grandpa.

 

[ourmefa]

Thanks for those great pictures. I believe I'd have really liked your grandpa.

For sure!!! He was a great guy!

This post inspired me to dig a little deeper and post something to our Facebook page as a point of reflection. Let me know what you think!

https://www.facebook.com/notes/most-excellent-family-adventure/chasing-his-shadow/197485157396725/

 

[crimsonshivers]

Awesome! So awesome.


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[ourmefa]

Awesome! So awesome.


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Thank you!! I am happy to hear it inspired someone!

 

[Iceni John]

I can just imagine the questions when you try to get that Airstream smogged. You could truthfully (sort of) say that they are four-stroke reciprocating engines running off renewable bio-fuel, and they generate a urea-based exhaust fluid that doesn't need to be used to keep their emissions within legal limits. Besides, how many vehicles need a shovel to control their emission particulates?

Horse-drawn vardoes are still occasionally seen in Ireland and Britain, but even the Romanies there have now converted to diesel-hauled caravans and trailers. There was a brewery in London that used horse-drawn carts to deliver to local pubs because they were more cost-effective in congested urban traffic than diesel trucks, but I don't know if London's stringent anti-pollution restrictions now have ended that.

John