| Show 2000 12 May Friday Herald The o Philanthropist Dixon Ford is seen Iwre with oxen Mike and j Steve Photo by Brant Stevens Raising 1 the year was 1847 Dixon Ford would fit right in with that whole wagons West deal' You can bet he'd be on a wagon train bound for what would become the bustling Wasatch Front walking quietly beside his oxen team wondering what the future would hold But it's the year 2000 and Dixon Ford knows what the future holds It’s microchips and medical miracles cloned sheep and atom bombs all wrapped up with deep-spasatellites communing with lasers in the jungle It certainly ain’t no oxen pulling wagon trains But Dixon Ford wants to make sure that a tiny part of the future holds oxen and wagon trains He wants the children of the future to know you can make a barn by hand and barns made that way despite all our newfangled ways will stand up to the ravages of time and testify that new ways ain’t necessarily better ways That barn is being built thanks to Dixon Ford’s contribution at the American Heritage Center in Wellsville Last Saturday its skeleton was raised by friendly hands and patient oxen The story of that bam is Dixon Ford's story and Dixon Ford's story starts with the oxen and their story So you might could say Dixon Ford's story is the Story of the Oxen ce - The Oxen Story The Oxen Story Story Jeremy B Pugh ftiotos: S John WWUn s 4 s t It all start when he was a boy helping his grandfather work the ' t fields in Wellsburg Utah and it ends with a bam raised by hand 'HHiHimHi ssSSasSflSse ta bouse the oxen and theirstory J a barn realizing a Any schoolchild raised in Utah knows about oxen The Mormon pioneers came West with them duh Beyond that “If you ask anyone what an oxen is they'll probably tell you it's a breed of bovine maybe mixed with buffalo” Ford raid ' ' Wrong An oxen is any bovine breed male or female over 3 years old with horns so it can't slip the yolk It has been trained to obey voice or motion commands Ford said It’s not a special animal It’s not related to buffalo It’s a trained cow bull or steer preferably a steer period “An oxen is a cow with a degree’’ Ford said Ford became fascinated with oxen as a boy watching his grandfather work his land with the great yoked beasts He noticed his grandfather could call these animals from dear across the field and then work them all day without saying a word to them Traditional ox “drovers" as they were called used verbal commands like “gee” for left and “haw” for right But Ford remembered his grandfather quietly working the animals and one day finally discovered the reason for his silent effective techniques The Mormons trained their oxen differently When they started out from Nauvoo III Brigham Young instructed die pioneers to march five abreast Fbrd said Hus was far two main reasons The first was to protect against attacks the second was to avoid rutting die trail out The mode of transit caused havoc with the traditional “gee" and “haw” method of controlling oxen Oxen were walking so close together that commands from different drovers would get mixed upAnox told to mqve left would overhear a side-by-si- de |
