Just a few miles south of Rock Falls, on a 10.8-acre homestead between farmland and a subdivision of houses, a man and his wife aim to keep alive the practices of farming and homemaking that thrived 100 years ago.
The homestead isn’t exactly a prairie, and it certainly isn’t in the late 19th century, but Muller’s Lane Farm comes close to re-creating what Laura Ingalls Wilder described in her “Little House on the Prairie” books.
Reading Wilder’s books as children inspired Paul and Cyndi Muller to live the way they do now – with animals on the farm providing meat, eggs and milk, and the milk being used for cheese, butter and soap, bees giving them honey and a garden providing fresh vegetables.
Some people think their way of life is unusual in the fast-paced, high-tech 21st century, but the Mullers know they aren’t along.
On a cool, early spring Saturday in April, the Mullers invited families with teams of draft horses to their homestead for a day of work in the fields – to disc, harrow, seed and roll an old 4-acre hayfield into pasture, then seed a new hayfield nearby.
What would take a tractor about half an hour to finish will keep the Mullers and their friends busy for the better part of a day. Speed isn’t the key to farming here; preserving a way of life is.
“This type of thing is not done anymore, especially outside of Amish and Mennonite communities,” Cyndi Muller says. “It’s a slower lifestyle. (We like) the camaraderie we have with fellow teamsters (draft horse team owners). If somebody doesn’t continue, it will be lost, and we feel it’s too important to lose. It’s a lot harder, but it gives us an excuse to play.”
“It’s a lot of work, it’s dangerous and it’s not time-efficient,” Paul Muller says, “but we do it because we love it … primarily because we have a love for history and the old ways properly interspersed with the new ways.”
The homestead is by no means primitive nor is it intended to be.
As the men unload their horses, which they drove to the farm via pickup truck and horse trailer, Cyndi Muller snaps pictures with her digital camera. Country music sounds from the cab of one of the trucks. To cook lunch, Cyndi doesn’t have to start a fire, only turn on her gas stove.
At Muller’s Lane Farm, history mingles with the contemporary.
“I wouldn’t want to live 100 years ago,” Cyndi Muller says. “I like my washing machine, my electricity and my whirlpool tub. But it’s nice to know we don’t have to have them.”
Out in the field, a dozen or so men marveled at the sight of their draft horses being driven through the field pulling discs. After a few turns in the field, the horses began to sweat, some attached to farm machinery for the first time.
“A working horse is a happy horse,” Paul Muller says, “that’s why they’re here, why they’re bred.”
And that’s the reason Troy Capp of Sterling brought his four draft horses – Bob, casper, Jessie and Bess – to the Mullers’ place that Saturday.
“My horses have been off all winter long and they need some work,” he says. Capp farms 20 acres – 10 each of hay and wheat – with horses and says, “I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
“I’ve always liked doing it,” he says. And he continues doing it, he says, “(because of) the price of gas (and) it’s quiet, you don’t have to listen to a motor.”
As the morning went on, more people arrived – some to help, some to watch and some to learn. The work would stop for a potluck lunch at noon. Then later that night, when the work is finished, they’d gather to play bluegrass music.
“It’s more than just a workday,” Cyndi says. “It’s a social gathering.”
