[Carl Russell]

A few more pics of terrain.

[Carl Russell]

Hey Mitch, I myself made money by charging $50/hour to clean up the logs. The owner was never interested in selling the logs, as she wanted to use the wood for firewood and lumber if it was sound.

As it turns out, I went down there today to pick up my sled and was talking to her about getting a wood mizer in there to saw it up for her. She is an artist, potter, woodworker, cheese maker, and homestead farmer. She is seriously thinking about splitting it into planks and making riven furniture.

The tree was 150 years old. Probably started growing the year they finished building the stone wall where it grew, so the lumber will have some historical significance on her farm. She paid us about $700 for about 800bf of good quality red oak logs and a couple of cords good wood.

On another note though, it is difficult to sell less than a full truck load for just the reasons you mention. We have a few concentration yards around here, so sometimes we will load a few logs onto a trailer and take them down there, or to a local small saw mill. Portable milling is most often a way that we use for the LO to get the lumber directly. I’ve talked with a lumber broker who would like to get some special horse-drawn lumber to fill a niche, but talk is cheap.

A few more pics showing my sled damage, the age counting experts, and some of the terrain we skidded over.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

So a bit more time to fill in some of the details about my earlier comments. I also have, and have had horses act like this. Some more than others. More often it happens like you describe, after some time off… a week or two. Usually when they are worked at least a few days a week they don’t waste their time like that.

The thing that I insist on though is not trotting back to the woods. A quick-paced walk is fine. I like them to act like they have extra energy, because they usually do, and as I said before, I want to use it. But a running horse is not a working horse in my mind, and I will let them burn the energy when loaded, but they need to walk back into the woods. I do this by insisting through bit pressure, tight until they walk, then release… sometimes over and over until they realize that it is no different than any other day, and they need to obey.

It is actually a great thing when you can have a horse demonstrate that level of pent-up energy, because I love working with them so that they learn to keep it, but to use it for my own benefit. It is a lot easier, and more effective to help an energetic horse manage its exertion, then it is to try to get a mellow horse to become explosive. This is especially related to heavy work.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Just as you have.

I usually take advantage of that energy to get a little extra done. If you maintain your directive and working cadence, they will begin to manage their energy more efficiently.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

I was just going over these numbers.

I changed the assumptions a bit.

If two horses eat hay and grain then maybe their consumption is more like 125Mcal/day. Thinking about Rick’s example… cut wood at 500′, I would have to say that the production for horses would be more like 2MBF/8hrday.
125Mcal/2MBF = 62.5 Mcal/MBF

The Machine at 15MBF/8hrday would be 888Mcal/15MBF = 59.2 Mcal/MBF

Seems like a virtual tie, which goes back to what Geoff was saying about the energy required to move a weight over a certain distance.

The added details of cost break down are bit more distracting, but there is a reality of how much the energy costs, and how that relates to overall efficiency.

I can say that in most cases I can average about $35/hr when working by the MBF, based on production. That cost covers my time and all expenses. This may also have something to do with the fact that I am also the forester, so I am not getting squeezed in the economics between forester and landowner.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

In terms of the labor per unit of production, I see that as one of the benefits of working with horses. With machinery, the labor per unit has to be lower, because the operational costs of the machine are much higher.

If the laborer in the HP is not the owner, then perhaps the owner of the horses is then cutting and contributing to an increased level of production. If the laborer is the owner then the money is more representative of the owners contribution to the operation in terms of skill, husbandry, and experience.

The income from HP operations is dedicated more toward personal expenses, where a large part of income from machinery operations is dedicated to fixed and variable costs of the machine.

By the way, are machinery operators really are getting paid $20/hour?

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Matt, we have 990 watts of solar in combination with a 1kw Bergey wind turbine. They charge 12 trojan 105’s, that power a 2500 watt trace inverter. We have gravity water, a sunfrost 24 DC fridge, and heat our water with solar in the summer and wood in the winter.

We also have a back-up generator that we run sometimes a couple of times a week. The solar electric panels are our best generators, because when the wind doesn’t blow, it doesn’t make any power…..

We also use much less electricity than most people could live with, but to us it is a harvesting system. We have collectors that allow us to gather energy, and we have a system that allows us in turn to monitor how we use it.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

mink;15630 wrote:

thats one big log, makes my back ache just looking at it….mink

No actually there was very little back work involved. Mink I appreciate your comment though, because that is exactly why I posted this thread.

There is no doubt that it is important to train our working animals to exert significant power when it is needed, but one of my strongest beliefs is that effective use of animal power involves finding ways to give the animals advantage over the power requirements.

Knowing what needs to happen, and bringing to that, experience with what can work, and what can go wrong… being able to “SEE” the physical requirements and having a bag of tricks and equipment that can be used to overcome the obstacles is a very creative and expressive process. It is what stimulates me to do this work.

This is what separates us from machine operators. Of course there are artists at the controls of some machines, and I know a couple, but in most cases it is like Mitch mentioned, we have just employed a power unit to overcome with brute engine power what used to take ingenuity.

We never touched this log with a peavey until we rolled it off at the landing. By using ropes and chains wrapped around the log we were able to roll the log with relatively little effort from the horses. And once on the sled, the load moved over the rough terrain in such a way that when I unharnessed there was only sweat under the collars.

This is why I can seriously consider doing this work day after day, and I know that my horses will be right there with me. There were a lot of potential confidence breakers for me and the horses through out this entire project, but by overcoming them with skillful communication, experience with equipment, and creative thought, we all came back to the trailer still ready to go another day!

I just want to add that I never hesitated to take on this job. It was one of the toughest projects that I have worked on, but I knew there was a way that I could make it work. I appreciate you folks encouraging me, and making suggestions, and even though I knew that things could go seriously wrong, this was not a situation in which I felt uncertain.

I really appreciate being able to share this with you though, because before the days of DAP and cell phone cameras, this would have been a personal experience with a very small audience. I know you all can appreciate this.

There is a brimming sense of accomplishment when watching over your shoulder as a huge log rolls up a skid onto your sled, and in front of you through long ribbons are these powerful beasts moving at just the right speed, in just the right direction, with just the right amount of power… stopping at the instant you command. There is an out of body experience of watching, and feeling, a scene unfold, in which you are the intellectual engine making it happen, by what seems to be by pure thought alone.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

We used 1″ nylon rope to a block in a tree upslope. Rolled the logs up onto the “level”. Then we rolled them onto the bobsled and took them out that way.

The top-wood all went out behind the log cart, as well as the smallest of the logs. The lay of the land is still uphill from where we loaded the sled, through a swale, between rocks and trees, then on a moderate grade down to where we landed them. That log dragged so hard, cut in, and snubbed up so many times, even with a cradle hitch, that the time we took to load these big boys onto the sled was well worth it.

Once loaded, the team could handle them with confidence, putting them right where I wanted them. They did have to scramble a few times with the butt, pulling on knees etc., but we were logging right?

The 10′ butt measured 41″ across the big end long ways, and 38″ the short way, and 31″ across the small end long ways, and 28″ the short way. It was definitley a stout piece of wood. I figure 325 bf international 1/4″ rule. All logs were sound, by the way, and even with some large limbs, they will make good lumber.

I did have some help. A good man who came to “apprentice” with me this fall. Lots of experience with a saw, and woods work, Kevin keeps his cool, and can think on his feet. We broke the sled the first time(!!!) that we loaded the butt. We positioned it so that we could park the sed down hill from it, to make it easier for the horses to roll it on. Well it rolled pretty easily….right off the other side…even with a stake in the pocket. The log was so heavy that it snapped the end off of the bunk where I attached the rolling chain. Usually a log will stop once it gets on the sled becuase the chain snubs it, as that end it hooked into the stake pocket, but this log just hesitated and snapped a 4×8 pieace of hard maple. Anyway…. arrogant trees…. we just rolled it back on the other way… this time uphill so that it would get gravity on its side.

I got up at 4:30am with a splitting headache and nasea. Had the horses loaded by 7:30, arrived forty miles away by 9:00, and came out of the wood at 6:00pm (It stays light almost that late!), and had the horses back in the paddock by 7:30.

I’m going to bed.

Thanks for the encouragement.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

The tree is Northern Red Oak. It went down during last summer. There is plenty of rot in several of the limbs, so I have serious questions about the quality of the logs. There are several large limbs that basically set up the bucking pattern that I mentioned above.

I plan to clean up the top first, working back down the trunk, mixing in the big logs. The butt log, being 10′ long, and probably at least 30″ will scale around 300-325bf, which at 11000#/MBF for NRO, should put it near 3500#, which should not be too hard to manage.

The only problem is where the log rests on the slope. I am not inclined to leave it up to pure power alone, as if it doesn’t come easy, or rolls back down slope, then it will be more difficult.

I expect my horses to be able to move it, but I take extra time to make sure I am making the situation as easy on them as possible, employing some mechanical advantage, or equipment, to ensure success.

The tree is not on my land. We are cleaning it up for a friend who runs a small farm on land she rents. The LO don’t want machines to clean it up. Jason I wish we had some of your snow. Their fancy driveway could definitely use a few inches. They will use the wood for heat, and if there is any usable lumber they will likely use it for some special projects in the old farm house.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

grey;15562 wrote:

So the travois-looking part behind the bobs is called the “drey”? …

Yes.

Other renditions have steel shoes on the ends of the poles.

If the front cross piece is under the poles, and the rear one above, as in Mark’s pic, then those two points can be fairly level. By adding two more rails on top of those points a rack can be made to use it in any way that one would use a double bunk sled. It’s just that this style can take much more abuse, and is cheap to rebuild.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

I think you will find that it is an attachment for a single bunk bobsled. Usually with a pin down into a swing bunk, it is made with two long poles attached together with cross pieces.

They were used to load four foot wood cross-ways, or more commonly used for sap tank for gathering maple sap.

Built like this the font bunks can be turned under the load making a fairly maneuverable long sled.

This is a distinctly New England term.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

I have taken to only using tongs on the landing, or short hauling to a skid trail. This because I have found that they are not as honest as a good choker chain.

In other words, as easy as they are to hook, I cannot excuse the errant let-go. I have a choker puller that I keep on my cart, or hooked in the ring on the hames when ground skidding, for pulling chain through under the tight ones.

I also have found that I cannot hook as close to the evener with tongs as I can with choker and bitch link, but it really comes down to the security of the chain for me.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Ben if you haven’t already read from this book, I think you would really enjoy it.

A Natural History of TREES of Eastern and Central North America by Donald Culross Peattie.Houghton Mifflin Co. 2 Park St., Boston MA 02108.
This book is not a forestry book per se, but an especially wonderful book of description of all of the trees natural to our forests. I love not only the style of prose, but that these species are introduced in a way that allows you to understand them for the contributions they make to the forest and to humans.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Using efficiency to mean proficiency. There is nothing wrong with proficiency being an important consideration, it’s just not necessarily the most efficient method.

Carl

[Author]

Posts