Horse-Drawn Snow Roller

At the turn of the 20th century, when farmers needed to go somewhere, they generally still traveled by horse-drawn wagon.  When it snowed, well, they'd just hunker down for a few days waiting for the roads to be cleared.  This didn't phase them in the least; after all, they had all the food, firewood, and fodder stored up that they needed for the winter.   However, there were times that it was necessary to get to town to do business, so a team of oxen or draft horses would be hitched up to a huge snow roller to pack the snow down on the road from one farm to the next, and on into town to make it easier to travel by sleigh.  Interestingly, snow rollers seemed to have been peculiar to New England and New York.
 
Thanks to Henry Ford and his mass-produced Model-T (starting around 1908), cars eventually became more numerous than horse-drawn wagons, roads were paved, and snow plows took over the job of making travel easier by scraping the snow off the roads.

We find much to learn from history though.  Recently, MacGyver, who reads and researches stuff like this all the time, reinvented a snow roller to be pulled behind one of our horses.  Taking an old cable spool, he nailed boards around the perimeter, did a little welding, set the whole thing on a frame with a seat, and voila!  (I make it sound so easy, don't I? :)  It's not nearly as big as the ones drawn by a team of oxen, but it suited the purpose of packing a trail through the woods, hopefully making it easier for our horses to pull a sled.  (The weather is supposed to deteriorate into slop, so it may be a few days before we can go for a sled ride.)

Here is the reinvented snow roller.  Whit is going to make a test run around the yard.  (That turned out to be a good plan. :)

 

We discuss a few modifications that need to be made.

 

Now that we've seen that the roller will work, we're ready to go for the test run through the woods.  Having the two of us riding on it made it less tender, and easier to balance.

  

 It really did work very well.  One pass down the path and one back made it wide enough for the two horses to pull the sled.

Now, I would just like a little more snow.