Time to Reconsider the Horse?
 

I was reading Gary North's column at LewRockwell.com, and he concluded with this:

You should look at your employment possibilities, your retirement portfolio, and the solvency of your employer. How well would your company do in an economy in which gasoline is at least $10 a gallon? What about $20? How would you do personally under these circumstances?

I suggest that you sit down with a pencil and a piece of paper and write down the changes in your life that would be imposed by gasoline at $10 a gallon.

I live in rural Georgia, and as neat as the fossil-fuel-free solutions on here are, I'm wondering if a horse-drawn buggy might not be an economical solution, either now or in the near future.

Lane

there slow... but usable.. I know a guy who cant drive due to a medical problem, so he has a horse and chariot style buggy that has room for him and passengers.. he goes all over in this arrangement.. even in the winter he uses it he uses a propane heater inside and encloses it in plexiglas. pretty cool actually... probably good miles per pound of feed for the horse too..

top speed is about 20mph but usually now more than a slow trot is all he goes.. say 10 mph. works well for him.

But what about the maintenance costs and needs for a horse? I won't pretend I know anything about one but my grandpa raised pigs/hogs and well.... they were quite the headache in both upkeep and routine.

*pig-powered transport? ...NAH!*

I think I saw someone on the news last week using a cow-drawn wagon to cross the country or to reach the capitol (WDC). I don't think it was fuel related but more of the "we can do it" sort of thing.

But if you've already got the means for animal support, I don't see why not unless there is some silly law that says you can't (wouldn't surprise me if there was one somewhere in the codes).

I remember seeing an old advertisement for one of those "newfangled automobiles". The ad compared the cost of fuel against the cost of keeping a horse, and figured the car was cheaper.

I wonder at what point it flips back...

On the plus side, the horse's "exhaust" is good organic fertilizer for your garden.

PS: Quite by coincidence, I was driving back from the Bay Area yesterday (via Calif 88), and passing through Lockeford (IIRC) what should I see by the roadside but a sign "Horses and Yoke for Sale". (For those who don't know the area, it's farming country with lots of orchards & vineyards.)

My wife has a 6 mile commute and is considering taking her horse to work. Luckily, the place she works also has horses. At 8 mph (trot speed) it would take her 45-50 minutes to get to work.

How do the horses fare in -40?

The Amish are doing fine with horse drawn buggies around here and have been for hundreds of years.

Do the Amish commute?

No, most of them work from home via high technologies. Surfing the internet to find ways to streamline their horse and buggy to increase fuel efficiency.

You see you have to feed the horse whether you are using him or not. Huge waste of time and money. Also a huge problem with methane gases and the greenhouse effect. This is why you don't see the Amish commuting long distances.

My grandfather once told me "if it weren't for the automobile we would be up to our ears in horse $h!t".

Internal combustion engines are much cleaner. You don't have to worry so much about stepping into the exhuast.