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Lambton County match plows on Saturday
- Lambton County Plowmen
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 2 minutes ago
It wasn’t too wet to plow Saturday, but it was close.
The Lambton County Plowing Match was nearly cancelled Friday evening following a wet week, but the Lambton Plowmen’s Association and host farmers, Ken and Pam Dobbin, decided in the end to go ahead.
The field on Black Ash Road in Enniskillen Township was soggy in a few spots, but the sky was clear, the sun was shining and more than 40 competitors, plus dozens of spectators, made the trip to the more than century-old annual competition.
“It’s very pleasing to see so many show up,” said Albert Tuinstra, president of the Lambton Plowmen’s Association.
“It’s drying up even now,” he said after the competition in nine classes began at 10 a.m.
County matches, like Lambton’s, are where those who take part in competitive plowing can earn points to qualify for the International Plowing Match, set this year for Walkerton later this month and then in Lambton County in 2027.
There were vintage and modern tractors and plows at work in the field, as well as a team of horses and a team of mules.
Dean Dochstader, from St. Clair Township, was plowing with a team of 18-year-old mules, Babs and Bunnie.
“I’ve been plowing just two years with them, but we do a lot of wagon rides,” Dochstader said.
Raising mules is a hobby, he said.
He said the team spends time each spring doing farm work with “some good Amish friends . . . just to get the winter fat off them.”
Dochstader said Babs and Bunnie are good natured.
“Stubborn mules is more of a myth than anything,” he said. “They’re smart.”
Tuinstra said competitive plowing is “a dying art really.”
“There’s not a lot of plowing done any more,” he said about today’s approach to farming and tilling the ground.
Tuinstra said the association is eager to get young people involved in competitive plowing to keep the art alive.
Kayla Campbell, 15, a student at North Lambton secondary school in Forest, was entered Saturday in an under 18 class.
“It was a last-minute signup,” she said. “The boys were doing it and I was, ‘might as well. What’s the harm."
Kayla said her family farm in Warwick Township and Saturday was her first time attending the plowing match.
Plowing was expected to wrap up in the afternoon and awards were to be announced in the evening at a dinner being hosted at the farm of Lambton Warden Kevin Marriott, Tuinstra said.
That’s also when this year’s Lambton Queen of the Furrow was to be named.
The winner of the crown takes over for Taner DeGurse who was on hand for Saturday’s match.
As part of her duties, DeGurse will represent Lambton during the Ontario Queen of the Furrow competition at this month’s International Plowing Match.
An early childhood education student at Lambton College, DeGurse is an active 4H member showing cows and sheep in competitions. She lives on the family farm near Brigden.
“The first year I plowed was actually last year at the plowing match,” she said.
DeGurse was just completing a term as ambassador of the Brigden Fair when her mom encouraged her to enter the Lambton Queen of the Furrow contest last year.
After she won the title at the 2025 Lambton plowing match, DeGurse represented the plowmen’s association at local fairs, including the Plympton-Wyoming Fair where she was asked to judge the 4H sheep show.
“That was fun,” she said.
~Paul Morden~ Sarnia Observer
More Photos:
A team and wagon from Beaver Meadow Stables provides rides Saturday. Colin Dougherty of Scotland, Ont., competes Saturday at the Lambton County Plowing Match Tractors and plows, new and old, were put to work Saturday during the Lambton County Plowing Match. Kayla Campbell, 15, of Warwick Township, competes Saturday at the Lambton County Plowing Match
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