[Carl Russell]

No I mean I let the ends drop, and then they feed through my hands. Otherwise they are never on the ground. The loop would have to drag on the ground as the horses move forward, which could get looped around a branch or some such.

I actually prefer to have my lines completely inactive when I am hitching. The best example i can set for people working around me is that my horses stand while I hitch them. Carrying lines while doing this can send errant messages to the animals, and requires that I am at least partially engaged with them while I attend to the hitch.

The big problem I have with teaching people to hold their lines while hitching, is the natural tendency to assume that it is ok if the horse won’t stand to be hitched, because the teamster holds the lines. I have seen way too many teamsters trying to hitch a horse while holding the lines, precisely because the horse won’t stand.

If your horse will stand, then setting the lines down is better in my mind. The horse has the clear message to stand because there is no contact through the lines. Line contact is not a way to get a horse to stand, and trying to get them to understand the difference between contact that results from fidgeting with the lines while hooking, and contact that is related to work is bringing an unsafe level of confusion into the process.

Donn, my advice would be to stop holding your lines while you are hooking. This is one of the very basic lessons I learned from several of my mentors… men who had grown up making their living in the woods. It is part of the code, like never stand on the live side of the hitch, and never hop over a moving log….. I could go on.

You are obvious a critical thinker, but this is just my advice.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

There are a couple of points that need to be made. The animals ability to buffer the draft requirements is not a matter of speed and power, but a matter of the elasticity of their own internal mechanisms, ie, tendons and joints, and how they are employed in the effort to move a load.

Anyone who has worked both horses and oxen can clearly see that the oxen almost stutter-step. They lift the draft with their neck, using their front legs as support, and their rearend as ballast. This very action will cause each step to have to start the load again, in a manner, which will cause a spike in draft each step.

Horses on the other hand, lift with their shoulders by lifting their front end off of the ground by extending their hind legs. Mechanically there is a buffer built into the extension of the triangle between their hind legs and their spine, not to mention the huge rubber band that is the tendon that runs that mechanism. In this way there is a much more fluid movement from one step to the other, and in cases of changing draft demand from the working environment, this mechanism will allow them to physically buffer the effect.

In both cases the more conditioned the animals are, the more effective they are at adapting to the changes. My contention is that the differences in these examples may have as much to do with the differences in how each animal type actually moves in relation to draft.

In this way even the 10 degree difference in draft angle will make a difference in the natural buffer of internal bio-mechanisms, because the lower angle plays directly into the calculation of how those joints expand. If the angle requires that more weight is pulling down on the front-end of the animal then the natural buffer is less effective.

Also, the example that CM used is not really that close to this discussion. Extra weight, or the resulting exertion, is directly related to available power. This discussion is about alleviating the impact of changes in draft. Putting springs into a hitch will not reduce the amount of power needed to move the weight, it will only serve to cushion the impact against the animals as they increase power to the required point. And they will not perform like gears on a bike, as there will be a constant mechanical advantage, or disadvantage, depending on how the teamster has chosen to apply the animal power, ie harness adjustment, conveyance, conditioning.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Just for balance…. I only tie mine together when I am plowing. I find that having them separate gives me more control… cleaner definition between lines when I’m sorting without looking, and I never want to have the loop that could get snubbed up on something.

I don’t drive with lines dragging either, but have always found carrying coils of extra lines to be quite easy, so never felt the need for the loop as Jason describes. I will, when twitching, let the lines drop if I am in a tight spot, and can’t move my feet easily, allowing the horse(s) to move forward by letting the lines run through my hands. This move in particular requires that each line be able to move freely, and I believe the loop would become troublesome.

However, when using my Barden style cart, I will tie the lines around the cross-bar in front of me so that they are always up and where I can get to them easily. I never drive that cart from the ground so I don’t need to take them with me when I am not on it.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Sorry to hear, Virgina, thanks for letting us know. The empty space they leave is hard to fill, but I know from experience there is a lot of joy in the memories that reside there, I hope you can find solace in them.

Be well, Carl

[Carl Russell]

I certainly had mentors. At least two significant ones, but there was no hand holding. I spent a lot of time reading and experimenting on my own. It was good though to have bits of wisdom that would float around in my head until, as I was scratching my head to try to understand how I had managed to screw something up, then “Oh, that’s what he meant”! And of course to have the example to watch, and listen to.

Just remember, “mentor” is term you can define for yourself. You may feel, like many of us do, that Lynn Miller, or Monty Roberts are your mentors, as they have a lot of material in print, and both are very capable of expressing themselves clearly. And you CAN learn from people who don’t know it all, if they inspire you, and challenge you, and encourage you to try.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Tim, great work!

Why don’t you think that the ox yoke acts like an evener?

I would think that draft angle would have more effect than you seem to indicate.

It seems to me like the differences in harness systems (leather with collars vs. wood and chain) and angle of draft are variables that could contribute to the differences in results.

I also wonder about the natural motion of horses. Does their motion dynamics offer superior draft buffer?

Would the more fluid motion of the horses have an affect on reducing the spikes in draft, which would in essence reduce the average?

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Jen, what a good story. It brought me back to 1986. First horse. Been skidding wood for a couple of months. Unhitched and started a saw to cut up the log. He took off with evener bouncing off his heels, and ran right past the barn and into the woods on the other side of the driveway. I remember that feeling, of surprise, and yet it was more than that too, a sense of resolve. I picked up the lines and went back to work.

I like your progression of how people learn, but I’ll tell you that 24 years later I still find situations where I just have to shake off the surprise, and muster up the resolve. I know a lot, but that in no way is a measure of what I don’t know.

Happy trails… or is that trials? Carl

[Carl Russell]

mitchmaine;17275 wrote:

…. any time i can make or do something around here that i’d have to pay out for is money i have made (even without it to show). folks like to point out that your time was worth money, but in the end i can’t hear their argument…..

It’s worth more than money if you use it for yourself. I don’t see my time on the farm as an expense, rather I see it as an investment. I don’t lose it the way I do when I go work for someone else. Besides I am learning as I’m doing, which is an immediate return, and in some cases I get so much pride from seeing a job well done, that I immediately recoup the value plus profit.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Tim Harrigan;17273 wrote:

Yes, it is very interesting. My interest and motivation is to understand the nature of the pulling forces and how they are transmitted to the team. An understanding of those issues can reveal opportunities to improve animal comfort and productivity. I have to think the animals would appreciate damping out those 1200 to 1600 lbf sulky plow forces measured with the ox team.

This is what has been going through my mind.

First of all is the difference in pneumatic vs. steel a matter of elasticity of the tire, or a matter of the steel wheel getting “trigged” against the berm of soil formed in front of the depression?

I am also interested in knowing the dynamics associated with changing nature of the required draft power. My sense is that the animals already are the buffer. After-all they are not gear operated.

The mental requirements for moving weights must take into consideration the varied nature of the working situation. This is why conditioning is so important for working animals. They need to have a built-in elasticity to the demands of the load, which has to be related to strength, agility, and stamina.

I can understand the interest in placing buffers between the animal and the load, but I wonder if it is un-necessary, and in some ways may counter the development of the energy management that is required of a working animal.

Carl

I came back, because it occurred to me that in the case of a logging arch, advantage is afforded not only by lifting the weight, but by allowing for an elastic forward movement as the angle of the chain changes to lift the log before it actually moves the log forward. So it may not be out of the question to add some such mechanism. I just want us to keep in mind how the horses or cattle work physically to overcome the draft requirements.

[Carl Russell]

dominiquer60;17226 wrote:

…..

Good Luck with all of life’s adventures, follow your dreams and remember when you give up wealth as the IRS sees it, you gain in riches and freedom in other ways. I don’t care what the government thinks, but Carl and Jason are two of the richest men alive and I imagine so are many of the others here on DAP.

Erika

Quote:

Rick Alger ….. Voluntary poverty is overrated. Start small with a single horse, a whiffle tree and a chain. Forget about arches, horse trailers and trucks, you can rent or borrow them when needed until you are making money.

Do good work. Build your client base first.

This thread speaks to the heart of the issue as far as I see it. Our culture has prepared us to live and work within a predetermined framework. This is not a bad thing, but in an attempt to become modern we have left behind certain attributes of bygone cultures, such as living within the confines of ones own environment, and taking responsibility for ones own needs.

Examples of this are having two new pairs of pants per year, living in a cold house because you built it with what you had and you heat it exclusively with wood cut by yourself, eating potatoes instead of white rice, sweating and covered with soil, manure, and pitch because you have to keep animals because you can’t afford machinery and you don’t have the cash flow to buy food on a regular basis, and staying away from the health care because you don’t have insurance and can’t afford that either.

Yes this is how I measure my wealth, and in fact it is so low that the IRS can’t even measure me. I started as Rick suggests with one horse, whiffle-tree, choker, and chainsaw, paid for with cash, and built from there. I did have a family pace that I could start from, but that has also meant that I have cared for my elderly mother for the last 15 years. We have also built a second house on the property, and have continued to invest what money we make, but the bottom line for me was to see my life as something that I could manage for myself.

This was not an example set for me in the educational institutions I attended. It was a remnant in the communities where I grew up. I saw men and women who worked all day without making a dime, but all the time adding to their bottom line. They definitely had other sources of income, but that money went a long way, and it was not the source of all they needed. People used to keep themselves healthy, and they were more accepting of what life dished out to them. I saw people living with extended family, sharing responsibilities, taking care of neighbors, and using their land like it was all they were ever going to have to meet their true needs.

I completely understand how life can get distracting, and how if you don’t grow up with land, or in a community that supports your dreams this description can seem like pie-in-the-sky, but the truth is comparing apples to oranges. Even the biggest farming and logging operations are faced with the reality that biological systems cannot sustain economy of scale. We just can’t expect to continue to live lives based on financial wealth.

At some point people as organisms depend on biological systems because they have an inherant production capability. We simply cannot use money to pay for that to happen, nor can we continue to expect that it can feed us and make us money. It is unfair that we live in a time when a lot of people don’t have access to situations where they can reasonably expect to begin to replace one type of existance with the other, but there are also a growing number of opportunities.

In the last year I have been contacted by over a dozen people who are actively searching for opportunities to make this change. Two of these people are willing to put their other life on hold, and are planning to come and live with us, to learn and to help. This is also a very hard thing to consider realistically, because parents, co-workers, spouses, and community members seriously question these motives. Years of investments in carreers, retirments, and homes are very hard to convert.

I am certainly not suggesting that anyone cash in the chips, buy a horse and build a teepee with 3 kids and a spouse. I am however, not alone in seeing a significant and looming limitation to our current highly consumptive and dependant lifestyle.

If there is any way that DAP can work to build a network among people who need, and those who have these skills and opportunities, then I will be very happy.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Here are some pix that farmerkitty sent for me to post.

[Carl Russell]

I nuked a PM spammer today who had sent over 1300 private messages. When I nuke’em like that the PM’s get erased from your in-boxes, and apparently you get a notice to let you know that I robbed it from you.

Double sorry.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

So I’ve read the article, and I can say that I would not change anything that I wrote before.

I will write a letter to RH, but I am going to make a few comments here first.

I appreciate all of the work that goes into writing an article such as this, and I really appreciate how he has stepped forward with his particular take on the task of training a green horse.

My take-away from this article is that in my mind there is a big difference between what the author sees as the product from working with his horses, and what I expect.

A horse subjected to the techniques he describes will definitely learn to acquiesce to the situation, but at what point does the teamster assert his leadership. I am much more interested in training a horse to respond to my commands, standing because I said to, driving calmly because I instruct him to, than I am in creating an animal that has had its initiative squelched.

I set high expectations for my horses. I want to have a working partner, and I know from experience that I can teach them to do what I want. To do this I have to set high expectations for myself. This is not to say that “things don’t go wrong”, but I purposefully take responsibility to engage the animals in ways that minimize those possibilities.

I was taught to never tie an animal while it is hitched at the same time to apiece of equipment, precisely because it is possible that the animal could get tangled. I was taught to never tie the lines to anything that the horse is not already hitched to. I was also taught that if I expect the animal to stand, then I should have them stand.

There are several aspects of this story that lead me to believe that the author is just not that interested in taking his training exercise to a higher level. Getting the horse to teach himself, tying him when he won’t stand, not adjusting the harness, and not trimming the feet, are all details of husbandry that speak to me in a way that makes me question the value of the information presented here.

This is not to say that there are not people looking for this information, or to be validated in using these techniques. It is not to say that RH should not publish it. However I am still concerned that by being presented in the magazine there is an unspoken acceptance of these short-cuts.

As some one who was taught differently, as a person who works hard to engage the draft animal community to raise the bar, I think we need to do better. I know that to many the bar is already too high, and it just doesn’t look like they could ever get to the level that some purport to be, but if we don’t instill an ethic to try, then we all languish.

As I have been organizing the Northeast Animal-Power Field Days since 2007, I have had a lot of teamsters offer to bring their animals as part of our demonstrations. I decided from the beginning that I would strive to bring teamsters who exemplify the husbandry, attention to details, leadership, and responsibility that I think should be part of the public presentation. This is not a comment in the negative for those who I haven’t invited, every year we bring in new individuals. This is why we pay our teamsters instead of expecting them to volunteer, because they deserve to be compensated, and they help to raise the bar at our event.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

It won’t hurt to practice driving your horses hands-free for a while.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Joe, Thank you. I look forward to receiving the magazine. I think your series idea would be a great contribution to our community.

Quote:

Biological Woodsman: A young horse that has accepted you in a round pen will try to follow you off when you leave them anywhere. It is their natural instinct after accepting you as their leader.

Jason, You would think that before leaving the horse, this tendency would be addressed so that they can be left to stand. I don’t leave my horses to stand until I know they can do it, and I don’t tie them to teach them to stand.

I will refrain from any more comments specific to this situation until I read the article.

Carl

[Author]

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