[Carl Russell]

Taylor, I understand completely where you are coming from, I just answer those questions differently. I pay truckers what they need to haul my logs, not to give me a bunch of crap about how my logs are piled.

I would never be able to afford to wait for 5 loads of anything to get moved. I call my trucker and tell him I’ll have a load ready in a week of so, then I call him a day or so before it’s ready, and if he can’t schedule by then, I call during the next week.

I certainly can’t afford to go home and wait for wood to be moved either. If I had 2 loads waiting on the landing, I’d be calling a new trucker. Typically I can accommodate about 15 MBF on any landing I have. In fact that is one of my requirements. If there isn’t enough room, I make a bit more.

I strongly agree with you about rhythm being a huge part of successful woods work, and log trucking can be a big part of that. At times I have seriously considered buying a 6500 series truck with flatbed that I could use to haul horses, hay, fuelwood, lumber and logs. I had one years ago, and moved a fair amount of my own wood, but the local mills have mostly shut down now, and I send my logs 35-70 miles to sawmills and concentration yards.

We have also thought about a road-worthy loader trailer, but nothing affordable has come along. And then there is the part where I start to figure that a piece of machinery is not cost effective if it is sitting around, so I start thinking about hiring someone to drive the truck for me….. Currently I find paying a little more, and pestering the truckers is more effective.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

I would just add that I have never used a rope halter. I recognize the principle, but I have had significantly positive results from correct handling techniques that I have found not to be limited by the type of halter.

If I had a horse that was shying while I was trying to lead them I would be working on getting that horse to pay more attention to me. Shying can be the result of true fear based on factors relating to the situation, or it can be a behavioral thing, like a teenager, trying to upset your assertion of leadership.

In both cases I think the horse needs to be helped to focus on you leadership. There are round-pen exercises as these folks have described. I will also try to describe one of my favorite lead rope exercises.

I will take a long lead 10-15′ and stand back about 5 feet, facing the horse. By waving the rope back and forth send waves of energy up the rope, increasing the effort and speed of the waves.. measured escalation… prepared to become almost violent if needed to get the horse to take it’s first step back. You are actually physically creating a reverberation of energy leaving your body and aiming it toward the horse. When the horse takes notice, and steps back, you reward them by stopping the energy flow and relaxing.

Then starting again at a very low rate of wave, a slow wiggle, gradually escalate the energy until you get the desired step back. As you teach the horse to watch your energy, you are showing him/her that you can and will be relaxed, but you are also showing them how “big” you can get, and that you will only get as big as you need to for them to yield to you. This will help them learn to focus on you, and it will help them to realize that they can control how “big” you get, by the way they act.

When you get a regular easy response, you can back up broadening your range of energy projection. Also when the horse begins to step back at the slightest wiggle, you can insert the word back. This will also help you to learn how to carry yourself around the horse so that they will focus on you, and it will also help you to learn how to escalate your own energy without waiting until you are frustrated and lacking the emotional perspective.

I have done all of this with normal ropes and halters. As a reminder, any time they feel the lead rope snap, or wiggle they will be reminded of the correct behavior. It is my belief based on experience that if the horse learns to focus on you, they will follow your lead, and their behavior won’t be contingent on a conditioned response, but on their trust in your leadership.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Traveling Woodsman;16295 wrote:

Carl, what was the motivating factor behind your decision to forego equipment? How does it affect your ability to do big logging jobs? Or maybe you don’t get any big jobs.

Primarily cash-flow. I have always been a pay-as-I-go business man. I also have a very diversified lifestyle, working a lot of my time for no money at all, just investing in infrastructure and personal/farm projects. This creates limits in two ways. First I don’t have the time for the continuity that generally defines a modern logging business, so I need to keep my overhead low. And secondly it does limit the magnitude of the harvest, typical windows lasting 6-8 weeks, and generally taking several applications to accomplish large volume harvests.

This is obviously a personal choice, but I find animal power to be so useful to me that my personal/home/farm-life/career has seemed to be an equally important way to capitalize on that investment.

Moreover, as it relates specifically to harvesting with animals, I have always seen the portion of the financial equation occupied by the animals as being very small. The cost of maintaining them is much less, proportionate to the income, than any piece of equipment.

When I first started out I worked with a small crew of friends using a Kubota Tractor Skyline, and we had an used loader truck. The purchase price was substantial (I can’t remember exactly), and fuel and upkeep were constant and sizable. We needed the rig to move and sort logs that would build up under the cable on the landing so it was a necessary fixed cost, but my experience with that helped me to formulate a business structure based on as low overhead and upkeep as possible.

I have worked with several people who have felt the same as Taylor and have invested in landing equipment, or even additional harvesting equipment like forwarders. In every case, it turns out that the cost of the machinery is what drives the operation. There is no doubt that the machines increase proficiency, but they also increase the cash-flow needs, and that in turn puts more pressure on getting work for the machine, which in turn makes it more difficult to find work that is ideally suited to horses, which in turn requires more use of the machine, which dedicates more income to the cost of the machine, and the efficiency of the horses gets absorbed in the equation.

I will be honest, the thing that attracted me to horses from the very beginning was the physicality of it. I was exposed to men who used horses, sleds, and peaveys. I was always very attracted to the physical intent, and the result of their personal investment. The craft.

One of these men had started working horses in the woods at 11, dragging the harness into the manger to get it onto the horse, cutting with axes and cross-cuts. He had always logged, and during the 60-70’s grown to crawlers, then skidders. By the time I met him he was back to working exclusively with horses, sled, and peavey. He had a crawler on the landing, but he rarely used it. He would say ” It’s too easy to sit on that thing, and before you realize it, you’re feeding it instead of your horses”.

I typically concentrate on one product at a time, but it the case of hardwood, I have to make more than one sort for wood. In those cases I just clear a bigger area, and sometimes I will bunch in the woods and draw it out when I have more room. As the peavey has been my tool I have become quite adept at using it with the least amount of effort. As I said, I thrive on the physical work. Not just the exercise, but the thought that goes into maximizing the return on the effort. A case in point was the red oak log project that I took on recently.

Mitch eluded to something in a post in that thread. One of the limiting factors for us as horse-loggers is the energy required to do this work. Traditionally it was done by larger crews. Currently we are in a very scattered community, and most of us work alone. I can totally sympathize with the need to bring machinery into that equation, but my choice has been to modify the lifestyle that depends on the income from the logging, taking advantage of the horses inwardly, instead of layer on top of the horses more economic demands to provide for a more financially demanding life-style. Personal choices all. No right nor wrong in my mind.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

My answers are in blue.

Does’ Leap;16266 wrote:

……My tendency in the past (and my wife would argue presently) is to push my physical limits – to my detriment (injuries, etc.). Youngster:D

1. What are your expectations for your horses in the woods? When is it asking too much (I am thinking in terms of terrain rather than draft). Pretty much the way you said it. If I can walk there, they can too, and often times worse. I tell them “you’re the ones born with four legs”. You can’t expect to work horses in the woods if you’re only going to work on easy terrain. I tend to set mt expectations high for both me and my horses. That being said I have been in some pokes that turned out to be stupid mistakes.
   

1. If you have a sore horse, at what point do you call the vet? I dosed my horse with 2 grams of bute. My feeling is to continue with the bute and some arnica for a couple of days and see how he does. I am not vet averse, but also don’t want to go clamoring for one when one of my animal sneezes. I never use bute, but the arnica sounds good. I work them even when they limp. On my way to the Oak Tree job, the horses in the trailer, scooting down the road to make time, went around a corner and the mare stepped over and tore her self a nice gash with a sharp heel caulk. I heard her dancing so I stopped, and by the time I got back there, there was blood dripping out of the back of the trailer. Worst caulk cut I ever saw… blood squirted onto the side of the trailer. I swore a bunch, but wrapped it with vet wrap…didn’t even have any gauze… and drove the forty miles to the job. The old timers always said “it’s a long way from the heart”. Anyway got a towel when I got there I got a towel and made a better bandage and worked until 6pm.. Lots of bloody snow. I will back off if they really look like there is joint damage, but I would check the feet first. I don’t think I have ever come back from a day of work and had my horse go lame or even stiff as a result of terrain or exertion…. it usually is from something else… abscess etc. I would get on phone call terms with a vet… I have a great relationship with my vet…. he only comes here for procedures or extreme emergencies.
   

1. Lastly, unrelated to the knee injury, I find when my horses can’t start a load with constant pressure on their collar, they back up and slam against their collars to get it started. I try to avoid this by rolling the log with chain position and starting bigger loads at an angle when possible. Is this slamming acceptable on occasion (it usually works in getting the load going)? If they can start it by banging it, they can definitely start it without. I give a command to get ready….tightening the lines, and by voice, before asking them to pull (I kiss at them). This way they will lean into the load and prepare, but they know not to explode until I give the go ahead. It will come in time when they learn to expect that EVERY load could be the heaviest load they ever pulled.

George

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Joel;16254 wrote:

Call me elitist. BS Forest Mgmt Colo St U ’74. I have a little problem with technicians calling themselves foresters.

Having said that I know lots of woods rats with no formal training except they have been in the brush most of their life.

I can see your point, but I have a greater problem with people who have the education to be considered “Forester” taking advantage of cultural assumptions and just practicing timber sale administration and calling it silviculture.

I appreciate the hard work and integrity that go into developing ones self as a legitimate practitioner, and I don’t appreciate people who try to sell themselves as similar just because of the tag they wear.

The difference for me is that I see the slight-of-hand coming from those with the background as well as from those without it.

And I am prepared to acknowledge when someone gets it, regardless of their background.

The hold that professionals get on their professions purely from label does not reflect their capability, and it doesn’t serve any of us effectively. A crook with a license is still a crook.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

jenjudkins;16255 wrote:

I got a couple from them, but was afraid to forward to you…so I just deleted them. How can they get access to our PM when they aren’t even a member yet?

We have solved that problem. Pending members are seen as banned, but this one I actually let in. From the records when I banned and cleaned up the file, there were 1172 PM’s sent by that individual, and they were a registered member for less than an hour!!!

Unfortunately I only have member names and e-mail addresses to review, so sometimes I let one in. Rest assured I delete at least 20 to every one I let in. It requires time either way, but I’m trying to make it as comfortable for members as I can, without discriminating against people just on their choice of member names.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Rick Alger;16211 wrote:

….Because I have no formal forestry training, I’ve been reluctant to bill myself as a silviculturalist. ……

What a couple of decades of working with trees, personal contact with the effects of different silvicultural prescriptions, and field observations is not enough?

You don’t have to convince anybody of anything other than that you know how to grow trees, you have proven capability as a low impact harvester, and that you have better ideas than the industry clones they’ve been working with.

Many of my clients are farmers, or logger landowners who do all the work on their own land, and they want to have their land in the VT Current Use Program. They hire me because they know I won’t come in there and tell them how they need to change what they have been doing for years, which is exactly what most consultants want to do.

This has helped to solidify for me that “forestry” is an artistic practice, surely based on some scientific principles (nothing beyond the comprehension of the average person), but none the less hugely judgment-based. The assumption is that college educated foresters, and certified foresters, are somehow more adept at practicing the art, while the truth is that they have mostly just bought into the industrial boilerplate model, and spruce/fir management is a perfect example.

I also work with a couple of skidder operators who have really fine sense about forest management, one actually calls his business Holbrook Forest Management. He doesn’t write management plans, but he is very astute about the way that forests grow, and his evaluations of current growing conditions are quite accurate, and his work shows it. There is no doubt he pisses off the local foresters, but I have, and will continue to turn work his way.

I don’t have experience working in your area, but I would say that all you need are a few landowners to go along with your ideas, and things will fall into place.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

I nuked her and cleaned up all the PM’s. Sorry about that. I review each new member, but unfortunately I miss a few.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Nuked her!:eek::D Sorry about that. Can’t get every one right by the name alone:mad:.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Looks like my first, Rob. That was 24 years ago.

[Carl Russell]

I am not northerly enough to run into true spruce/fir cover-type, but we do get fairly dense red spruce growth around here. My primary observation is that people tend to leave “dog hair” stands too long before thinning. Spruce and fir will grow quite well in very dense conditions, but without thinning they develop narrow crowns and therefore narrow root systems. Then when stems reach marketable diameter the harvests are limited to strips of small diameter wood, and primarily focused on regen.

I have taken several stands on my property, and on some clients, and conducted TSI starting at 3-6″ DBH. I have cut thousands of red spruce fence posts… not the longest lived, but a great use of my labor… but generally I just cut’em and leave’em. What I have found is that I get much better formed red spruce trees with better natural spacing, so that as the stands mature I can actually thin using single tree selection, of trees that are large enough to make the harvest more affordable.

I realize that if you are working for consultants who can’t see their way to suggesting LO’s invest in TSI, then the equation doesn’t work, but it boggles my mind that these individuals whose practice it is to manage living systems don’t see how their choices are limiting the outcome…. perpetually.

I would just start to be blunt with LO in your area…. the foresters they are working with are not serving their best interests. You can offer services that make sense and deliver real results without having to add the cost of consultant supervision. There are ways to mimic the best of natural processes. We have all been in spr/fir stands where mature trees are larger, healthier, and can respond to thinning. Just because spr/fir stands are also prone to overgrowth of small weak trees that blow down in clumps, does not mean that this is the best silvicultural model to replicate.

One of the reasons why I find animal powered forestry so attractive to me as a resource manager is because I can cost effectively combine non-commercial silviculture with commercial harvest based silviculture. This is something that expensive production oriented mechanical operations just can’t do. We must stop allowing the crutches that machine depend on to define the way we practice forestry with draft animals.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Way to go Jen.. and Reno. I’ll admit I’ve been ignoring the horses since I was delivered 26″ of wet heavy snow.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

I have always decked my logs by hand and hired a self-loading log truck. I will often find a bank near the roadside where I can roll the logs down. Other times I will just deck them up using skids. With 12′ skids the angle is pretty manageable so that I can roll up a couple hundred feet with a peavey by myself, leaving the very heaviest on the ground.

I usually only pile them about 3-4 logs high (4 feet or so). I have never felt the need to have a mechanical devise. I have worked with friends with tractors, dozers, and forwarders, and although the decking is a lot faster, and easier, the purchase price and the requisite increased production never really appealed to me.

It has meant that I didn’t set the world on fire with production… lots take me longer etc., but my overhead is very affordable. I will hire an excavator from time to time to build landings or dress up skid roads etc. so that my handling method is effective.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

I meant low N and LOW PH. That is one draw-back to not burning, but we do intend to apply lime and/or ash. We’ll definitely do the soil tests. I just meant that most of the direction is not determined by the measurements.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Just got off the phone with Joe Wengerd (Pioneer Equip.), planning on meeting with them and other Amish manufacturers during a mud season road trip in April, to discuss ways to get more presence at 2010 NEAPFD.

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