Meet Tony the Farrier

Paul Moshimer, Farrier Tony Diemand, and Pamela Rickenbach talk about the fate of carriage horses in New York City.

One of my favorite parts about the Contemporary Pastoralism Project, is meeting tradesmen who come to the farms to help care for the animals. On Wednesday I met Tony Diemand, a wonderfully eccentric farrier who works with some of the largest hooves I have ever seen, belonging to the beautiful work horses who live at Blue Star Equiculture in Palmer, MA.

I learned a little bit about his trade. For example, after having his foot in the wrong place (ouch!) he told me that it is not good to have steel toed boots because the steel can not handle the weight of these horses and would...well you can picture, what might happen. I arrived with ink and paper hoping Tony could aid me in using all that weight and get monoprints from a living and breathing press!

Of course, I had to get a print of those magnificent hooves!

Merlin joins in the fun

With a little work these prints might help out the farm in the form of a fundraiser.

Before his pedi

Photos by Christina Anderson and Nancy Winship Milliken