[Gabe Ayers]

Scott,

I have sent a personal email to Tim inviting his participation on this thread. If I don’t get a response I will call him, because as we all have probably experienced – this medium is not always reliable. Emails don’t always go the person when you click send….has anyone else experienced this….?

And I think Glen said NAHMLA was a 501c6 – a trade association.

You know Glen used to author some cool tips along with the newsletter. They were somewhat regional to the work he did in that regions forest, but good stuff. I think the general thinking was that he was writing this to other practitioners not new beginners to the trade.

I hear you Carl. I am glad you are there doing what you are doing and willing to share as much as you do. We are all fortunate to have you in this community of interest. Thanks.

[Gabe Ayers]

Dear Horse Logging Peers,

This is a short version of my/our history with NAHMLA. I hope it isn’t over… yet!

Many years ago, Glen French and Tim Carroll came and stayed with us here the Virginia Mountains and we worked a spell. NAHMLA was active then and it was primarily Glen French. Glen wrote the newsletter, keep up with membership and provided direct contact through the phone for anyone interested. Tim was the vice president at that time.

It is like Carl says, these titles mean nothing, it is who takes action that makes things happen.

When Glen decided to quit and actually retire from actively logging with his horses, he asked if I would be interested in taking it on. That was about ten or eleven years ago and HHFF was just getting started. My primary volunteer at that beginning point said “no way” we have more than we can do already and our mission and goals were clearly different than an “association”. I accepted that guidance and told Glen I couldn’t handle it at that point.

Glen passed the archives, newsletters and membership list and some funds to Tim to carry it on. I completely agree with Scott, Tim plate and anyone’s plate can be overloaded with all the stuff it takes to run a growing operation
especially when one is determined to actually make a living at this work. I completely empathize with Tim’s reality. It is more that any one person can do. So it has languished in space and not moved forward in recent years, despite having a few ads here and there and Tim still fielding some calls and putting out a couple of good newsletters. I think he has done the best he could and am grateful for that effort.

At one point in recent years (ten or so years after the first discussion with Glen) there was some discussion with Tim about HHFF taking on NAHMLA and developing it as a clearing house for contact between existing horse and mule loggers. We expressed a willingness to do that and Tim never moved on the idea. That is where it remains from our position at this point.

Now I want to be clear about the difference between a “public charity” that exist for the public good, because it serves the public in ways that no other government organization does and an “association” that represents a particular interest group and promotes that groups cause and efforts.

The greatest legal difference it that a 501c3 is a tax exempt entity that all donations to are 100% tax deductible and through that status they are allowed to compete with the government for revenue as they have that status by exiting for the public good and providing services (education, demonstrations, etc.) not provided by the government. An association is not tax exempt and donations are not tax deductible. This is why associations sell membership or collect membership fees to operate. We don’t sell memberships and fund our efforts through other means, meagerly I must admit.

Both entities have advantages and disadvantages. We are working to refine and develop the Public Charity status. We are limited in our political actions and must stay out of that debate although political positions are pretty obvious to anyone paying attention. Getting the government to support “restorative and therefore sustainable forestry” is a long ways from happening. There are many reasons for this that we can talk about if anyone is interested.

HHFF is still willing to be a support agency, a fiscal agent, an umbrella organization for NAHMLA. That would certainly require more collaboration than has occurred historically. It will take time on someone’s part to do the association justice. The membership could be grown seriously and form that economic base the culture perpetuated. That puts it within our mission, goals and objectives and would be within our legal status. It would take help to make NAHMLA all it could be.

Let’s keep talking about it…..

Thanks for bringing it up.

PS – Personally I count Glen French as one of my mentors. He was extremely skilled when working in the woods and was one of the most accomplished horsemen to every skid a log. Tim Carroll has also given a tremendous amount of his life and personal time to this effort over the years and is due considerable credit for his efforts on this cause and for the powerful example his own operations have provided.

[Gabe Ayers]

Farmers grow grass, but weather makes hay.

Broken record here too Joel. Of course we have to remember we sometimes are talking to people that don’t even know what a record player is…. and a skipping disk player is not the same as a skipping record, were you can hear the words over and over…

Given the reality in the east, that seldom are there stands of one pure species or variety of grass or legumes – it is often difficult to get all the forage ripe at the same time. So we just try to base the harvest on the dominant species or one that comprises the greatest amount of the forage that will be saved by making hay out of it.

I agree with mowing in the afternoon to capture the sugars and also get the greatest quick drying of the hay during the best time of the day. The idea is to get the forage dry enough to preserve it under roof and that requires the right weather.

I think of the timing on the ripeness to be when the crop is at 3/4 maturity and not completely ripe. When it is ripe or completely mature the seeds all fall out in the handling of getting it into the barn and there goes all the digestible nutrition back out on the ground.

I also agree that a little rain just after cutting doesn’t hurt the hay as long as you can get it up off the ground and dry quickly after the rainfall. The problem with rained on hay is more about getting it dry enough to bale without it molding before packing it tight in a bale. It also is important that the hay not be in a windrow when it is rained on because the spiraling of the grasses that occurs when using a side delivery rake, makes it hard to dry the center of the windrow after it gets partially dry and then soaked with rain. So rain on a swath is not like rain on a windrow.

Our approach is about do as little as necessary to get the grasses dry and baled with as few passes over the field as possible. Look for a high pressure weather system approaching, mow it down in the afternoon, rake it the next day after the dew is off the top of the swath and bale it that afternoon. I don’t have a tedder and don’t want one. It is just another manipulation that is unnecessary given the right weather for mixed grass hay.

Another comment is that when you stack your hay in the barn put the cut edges down on all your bales and overlap them first one way and then another. This will allow some air movement in the hay mow or loft and will cure the hay to a stable moisture content without any further molding or degrading of your primary feed for the winter and use for working horses that may be on hay all the time.

I think an important consideration is thinking of this work as capturing solar energy in the form of dried grasses and legumes that provide the fuel for
biological power units that convert that captured solar energy into applicable power extracted from their movement under our direction. This view puts the traditional approaches in alignment with the new buzz word wheelers concerns over “sustainability”.

It always aggravates me when so many new comers to the “sustainable” community of interest are ignorant of the proven practices of the past that were more sustainable that most the hoopla of the current thinking about human presence on this living earth.

It flat out pisses me off when they dismiss what animal powered people are doing as “anachronistic” or old fashioned, backwards or stuck in the past. It really is an expression of the ignorance of history that many modern people have.

Here’s to hoping that all your bales be bright, tight and light.

PS – I guess most of you saw the photo posted on this thread of our hay beside the barn. I have an elevator but we only use it for the third floor loft and otherwise the elevation is human powered.

[Gabe Ayers]

I also truly enjoy the Draft Horse Journal, the oldest heavy horse magazine in the country. DHJ is going through some subtle changes as the editor role is passed down to the next generation with the founder, Maury Telleen passing it on to his son Lynn. Although there is clearly some service directed to the showing world of draft horses there are lots of other articles about all sorts of draft horse and mule usage.

I also enjoy Rural Heritage and Small Farmer’s Journal.

[Gabe Ayers]

Here is what we did instead of going to HPD.

Hope everyone in the northeast is able to may some hay now that it has cleared up there.

[Gabe Ayers]

We are still planning this event. It could be called a “flexible adaptive management style”.

Our purpose is to promote the modern use of draft animals in any capacity possible to help address human needs in life. We do see this as a part of the mission statement of our non-profit that exist as a public charity to serve the public good. (more will be written about this soon)

There is no question the the exchange between presenters and demonstrators will be free and encouraged. We think the event will be small enough that this will be the style of the cultural exchange.

Like most of our lives and this lifestyle – weather will be the determining factor on the public participation and the gate will reflect the weather. People just don’t come to outdoor events in the rain. So everything we be dependent on that reality. We hope to gain enough support from vendors and advance ticket sales to cover the cost of renting the grounds and will just hope for the best otherwise.

We have an understanding that many of the folks that pay to come will just be spectators and they are welcome, the price is the same at the gate and we need the money to send forward to continue the event in this region.

We would hope to express southern hospitality to our visitors and encourage their enjoyment of the presenters, participants, vendors and speakers.

We also are prepared for the inevitable negative criticism of the event. There are always folks wanting to talk down every event in any venue.

We are thankful for all the advice and guidance. Experience is knowledge and those having done this before can surly advise those who are planning similar efforts in the future.

[Gabe Ayers]

Wow – 80.00 for how many folks Lance?

I am not sure how much instruction will go on at SDAD as much as demonstration.

The workshop idea/approach is great and will definitely attract folks interested in the focus of the workshop. Will there be a separate charge for the workshops Carl?

Can you tell we are still planning?

It will be fun for sure.

I have heard and read that HPD was over whelming crowd sizes….What about it Lance, was it crowded?

[Gabe Ayers]

Lance and All,

Do come on down to SDAD, the logging will be state of the art and it will actually happen in the woods….on a ridge overlooking the fields and campground and arena. That was a prerequisite for us. One well known
southern Brabant guy said some folks thought the entire event was going to be a logging demonstration with a little farming on the side. There is a tendency for southerner’s to pick on each other as an expression of affirmation.. shinks call it “southern pseudo hostility”. I don’t think it will just be a logging demonstration, but since we are providing the logging part, it will be comprehensive. We will have a band sawmill processing the material on site. There will be plenty of field work too, just not a bunch of motorized forecarts and multiple hitches. We need new people in this community of interest and they aren’t going to get started with multiple hitches.

I am sure we won’t have as many horses and mules or Amish vendor’s but it will be a good event for a start up.

We will pull horses a little on one evening, haven’t decided which yet… probably the first night, Friday the 18th.

Those are good suggestions to have wireless mic’s on the presenters and demonstrators. HPD certainly shouldn’t have an economic challenge to afford that kind of technology to increase the quality of the experience for the spectator, which of course is who the whole thing is about….We are researching how to do that technology economically, hopefully enough folks with show up to help pay for it….

We look forward to meeting lots of folks there. It may be a new approach to have more smaller regional gatherings to develop this culture and community of interest. That is indeed our intention with SDAD and I am sure that NEAPFD is the same. Go to all of them if you can.

Salute,

[Gabe Ayers]

Thanks Jim and Barbara,

We haven’t scheduled another intro class yet. The problem is the cost of advertising in the national pubs. A color add is very expensive, so we probably won’t do that again. We need about five students to make it worthwhile and with just the one ad in DHJ we only had three last time. We do continue to attract some interest locally from young folks and have a couple with us most of the time. That is encouraging, but the fact is that it is hard to make a living doing the right things in the natural world, so I understand how difficult it is to recruit folks into this as a business or lifestyle. They have to want to do it and find us, which is a slow process. We continue to be dedicated to perpetuating the cultural traditions that reward truly sustainable practices.

There also has been some interest in an advanced course that would include former students and current practitioners, part and full time. This would be to work at multiple hitches, steeper ground, cable and sheave usages and more advanced horsemanship skills.

We also continue to be open to private instruction for anyone that wants to come and spend time with us in the actual working conditions while practicing restorative forestry. It does seem appropriate that these educational experiences become more and more decentralized and occur in the communities that the student lives and intends to practice. It is just hard to find an experienced mentor that is willing to give instruction in all areas of the country.

On that note I got an email that said Farmer Brown is selling his farm and downsizing. I don’t have any details on that situation but loosing him would be an incredible hole in this community of interest. Jimmy Brown is the real deal and Linda is a dream wife for that awesome country man. I think they are at Horse Progress Days this weekend. It is Horse Progress Days, not Farm Progress Days as mentioned in the events post here on DAP.

We will be in the hay fields trying to save what forage we can in this erratic weather of 09.

Thanks for the support and interest of the DAP group.

Sincerely,

[Gabe Ayers]

Larry,

Can you post photos and prices on these good horses?

Thanks,

[Gabe Ayers]

Well it seems everyone’s weather is simply extreme. We had more rain also in May and June, the local TV weather guesser said second most since keeping records. At one point we had 10 inches in 2 days. Puts the contour cultivation to a test for washing. It was way wet for a while, most commercially fertilized hay lodged and fell over. Then a high pressure moved in, it didn’t rain for 9 days and was really hot.

We managed to run the three foot through the potato patch before each rain, putting double shovels on for the last pass this weekend to lay it by.

We have just finished cutting our first share crop field. It is a farm we manage the woodland on too. It is about 10 miles from our farm and has improved grasses. Not much hayland up in the mountains.

About a 1000 bales of well cured unconditioned mixed grass hay in the barn. All done with machinery and fossil fuel. That’s about the only way we could get it done under the scenario of having over a dozen drafters to keep all winter on a small place. It’s a good start, but not what I would prefer doing. We simply have to many horses. We’re not feeding as many animals as Plowboy and family.

We’ll move our equipment back to he farm and cut our’s as soon as the weather promises three more rain free good drying condition days. The horses will get to rake some maybe.

Wishing everyone finds a way to make and save feed for he winter.

On the past it’s prime situation I submit that many old time standard varieties will gain favor as weather extremes continue and late harvesting is needed to have stable dry weather. The best stuff in all of the grasses we are cutting now is the Timothy, still tall green, sweet and just now pollinating. The Trefoil is now ripe too. It seems late is about the only time we can make good hay over the last decade or so, in the central Appalachians.

We will be glad when all the hay making is done so we can go back to actually making so income again. Having to harvest some logs around the hay making just to keep up with regular life expenses.

Keeping up with special order lumber and beam orders for the Crooked River Farm project and delivering to on site bandmill is a challenge. We do this early while the dew is still on. Hard to get enough done this time of year.

[Gabe Ayers]

Thick maned horses are definitely more comfortable with a bridle patch clipped to put their crown behind the ears and fitting their head. In the process of all this fitting and clipping scratch them to see if they have an itchy spot, if so put some mineral oil on it to help with the itch. Of course this will make the bridle even harder to keep on but fitted properly it will still take some effort to get it off.

I wouldn’t consider putting the halter on the outside, just like I wouldn’t wear my underwear outside my pants. This would seem to interfere with sensitive contact with the bit. Fit the halter properly with the noseband two fingers below the bone in their face.

We have experienced that allot of head tossing and rubbing is more about sore necks or uncomfortable collar pressure from tongue weight than the bridles. Although some bridles simply don’t fit right on all horses and the nylon ones will definitely rub hair and eventually hide off the side of their head just behind and above the eye. So once you have the bridles fitting properly and have checked to be sure they are smooth on the surface that touches the horses be sure their necks are sore from any tongue weight. Even if you don’t have excessive tongue weight or have transferred it to the back by a properly adjusted D-Ring harness – some horse develop habits that even when the cause of the habit is removed will continue the habitual behavior. This may be a time to scold them for the behavior. Be sure they are not fighting bugs off their ears or that they don’t have some itchy ears from insects.

We have not been able to find nylon or biothane bridles that are comfortable on the horses. So we use all leather bridles that have a memory of fitting what they are adjusted to and don’t use the nylon ones any more. Leather has a memory and nylon has strength, durability and low maintenance….

Good luck with it, same of deal, keep working them to where any movement that is unnecessary will lessen or stop.

Off to the hay fields in the central Appalachians, finally stopped raining after about a month and a half…. It still seems like a gamble to put the years most important crop on the ground, but it is time.

It always makes it hard to participate in HPD because this is prime hay making weather for us in this part of the country at 3000 feet altitude.

[Gabe Ayers]

Neal,

The little stage is where the sound people set up their boards and stuff to adjust the sound coming out of the big stage, which I will try to attach a photo of. So it is just a place for the sound people to work in and not play music out of. The big stage is mostly white pine. The big Hill Holler Stage can be seen in the background of the attachment below.

I think nothing is as good as wood for many purposes and acoustics are another example. This Floyd Fest deal is mostly about electronic amplification of musical instruments and very little to do with actual acoustics. The main reason for the stages is to showcase the craftsmanship and local businesses that make these structures, particularly as a choice for home building.

Incidentally the back of the little “front of the house” will have a mural of the horses logging to promote the source of the material. A local artist came and searched our photos for something to base the mural from. I hope to have a photo of that painting from photos to share before the actual event in July.

Floyd is just a little county and the name of the county seat in this little place in southwestern Virginia, about 20 miles from Roanoke on the north and one county away from the North Carolina on the south. I came here as a high school kid riding down the Blue Ridge Parkway many years ago. The BRP is the county line on the east and it is along the crest of the Blue Ridge. It is a high plateau with very little industrial development because of the geographic isolation of the place. We are getting our share of McMansions though. The primary way people made their living was farming and forestry, but nowadays most people compute to Roanoke and Blacksburg for employment. The land is reasonable fertile (acidic), the rainfall adequate and the wind is relentless. I returned to the area in the early seventies to homestead and have bought one little place after another until I got the place we are on now. Land used to be cheap, not any more….10K an acre is common… it is about 85% forested, which provides us lots of work in the woods. After being on the cover of the Mother Earth News back in 87 I have felt a responsibility to not advertise this place as some kind of eco-topia. It is not, nor do I think there is such a place anywhere. It is just another place on earth that provides enough natural resources for a working person to survive with a little luck.

We are quite isolated as far as other animal powered practitioners go and have only a few other folks that work animals at all and none of them are actually physical neighbors. There are only a couple of Biological Woodsmen here and neither one apprenticed with me, but with another one of our practitioners. They both do work Suffolk horses.

Thanks for asking. Keep playing music or listening to it live anywhere you can. We will have some of the local folks and practitioners playing music on our upcoming segments in the series on Modern Horse Logging on the Rural Heritage Show on RFD-TV. We just worked on editing the third in the series yesterday. It will actually have some of the acoustic rock we play in the background of some of the segments. I will post the actual air times when I find out.

[Gabe Ayers]

Old Kat,

“Front of the House” is hip speak or music jargon for the little shed the people that run the sound system set up to make the adjustments to the musical, audio and light show portion of the entertainment.

The promoters talk about this in the you tube piece posted. I am still waiting to see what this amounts to for the continuation of the business that our work ends up being as a living wage income producer.

The “Meet the Farmer TV” channel seems pretty cool and features some interesting folks doing good things in the countryside.

Right now (for work around hay making) we keep switching back and forth from the Stream Line Timber Works site and custom harvesting pieces for their needs and the Crooked River Farm

(http://www.crookedriver.wordpress.com/)

project doing the same. It is always interesting to harvest material for a cut list within the restrictions of worst first single tree selection and the principles of restorative forestry. It is never fast, in fact is much slower and requires good planning and some reasonable lead time to get the material out, processed and supplied to the builders.

We are trying to do exactly what Carl did, which is provide home builders the option of using material from their own land while preserving and restoring the forested eco-system throughout the process. Of course this approach isn’t as personal as what Carl did by doing all the work himself, but it does give our culture a place in the economy of this rural setting. Everybody isn’t as talented, dedicated, determined or tough as Carl Russell.

Thanks for asking.

[Gabe Ayers]

I think if one is starting up and they have a foundation of support from someone that has the tractors, equipment and land that an integrated system would be a good starting point.

Although this is the Draft Animal Power web site, I suspect everyone on here has their share or degree of fossil fuel fired dependency. I know we do. I think of it as doing my part to run the fuel out and or use it up as it inevitably will run out and get more costly along the way. So a transition to animal power is appropriate from that perspective and a nice comfortable situation for those members of a family that have their preferences.

Beyond that statement of the obvious, that fact is that animal power is a superior technique in many settings, beyond the finite, expensive and polluting fuel issue.

Animal power is less compacting on the soil and that is more important than is commonly understood. For instance in events of heavy rainfall such as lately in the mid-Atlantic and elsewhere, the land worked on the contour in row crops with animal power is far less likely to erode than land compacted with tractor wheels. My own truck crops and garden this year are powerful evidence of that undeniable fact. We had ten (10) inches of rainfall in a 48 hour period last week. My garden and truck crops being plowed, ordered up, planted and cultivated with animal power did not erode enough to even be considered a negative. Meanwhile other neighbors that used tractors and paid less attention to the lay of the land now have much of their topsoil downstream of the cultivated site and it will never be put back…. Animal power is the superior form of mechanical weed control and cultivation of row crops. On the contrary situation in years of below average rainfall, the use of animal powered cultivation will allow the soil to absorb more water than land that has been rolled over by tractor tires and will tolerate the extremes of weather conditions, to wet or to dry. These subtle differences may be the difference between crop failure and reasonable yield.

So the point is that this work may seem extreme to some mechanized farmers, but in fact extreme is exactly what the weather is offering all of us to deal with when working the land. If you know that animal power is better in dealing with extremes, then it seems a wise choice. This choice does depend on the cultural skills to handle the horses and the appropriate application of their capacity.

Off the growing season or during the winter there is a good opportunity to work your animals in the forest, where their traction capacity is superior, again for environmental reasons. We welcome you to visit our web site (address below) to learn more about that income generation aspect of draft animals.

One clear recommendation is: get a well broke, trained mature pair of draft animals that you will have success with from the onset of their integration into your agricultural and forestry enterprises. Take your time on that first purchase and make sure that all your concerns are meet by your new animal partners. Seek the advice, guidance and support of other community members that have animal powered cultural skills.

Good luck, welcome to Draft Animal Power, let us know what you decide and how it progresses.

Sincerely,

[Author]

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