So, I was a hooker...

First let me apologize for taking SO darn long to update the blog.  Things have been busy, you know how it is.

Now, back to the subject at hand.

Many, many years ago I met a neighbour of sorts while I was out riding.  I was boarding at Kimfer's parents place and stopped to chat at one of the farms that I passed by.
Turns out the guy that owned the place, Mel, had Percherons.  Big, beautiful, black Percherons.  He drove them at threshings and such but what he really enjoyed doing with them was competing in team pulling.
I introduced Kimfer to Mel a short while later and he introduced us to driving and the world of Big Horses. 

Being horse crazy young women we helped Mel out whenever we could to get some first hand knowledge and experience with drafts.
(to this day the BEST bareback ride I've had has been floating along at a trot on the back of a Percheron)

Mel's favourite thing to do was to take us along as his assistants at horse pulls.  We would help harness the horses but our real job was to drop the pin from the harness to the stone boat.  You had to be on your toes for that because those horses L.O.V.E.D. their job and were revved up to compete.  You needed to drop the pin in at just the right moment so they could take off pulling to the best of their advantage.  This was also known as "hooking" as you were hooking up the team to the stone boat.
Mel would kinda keep us hidden until the pulls were starting so that the judge wouldn't get a look at who was helping him until they announced, "And hooking errr... ummm... dropping the pin for Mel X is cdncowgirl." (or Kimfer)