[Carl Russell]

Joshua Kingsley;20108 wrote:

Sounds like it is time to forget the tractor and have a horse drawn forwarder 🙂
Joshua

It may seem that way on the surface, but this job is all uphill back to the woods, and steep at times. I think the only way a self-loading forwarder can be used would be with a tractor. It would be just too much weight to pull back into the woods empty.

The forwarder does give us advantage of sorting and stacking logs roadside, which allows us to have a low-cost landing in terms of construction, maintenance, and clean-up. The real reason we are using it here is that there are four of us that are looking for ways to get help, and make our work more practical, and one of the four owns the forwarder.

I was planning, and would still do it, to log this site in the winter and use my bobsled. With these good roads, and being downhill all the way to the landing, I could put a thousand feet on the sled in on snow, and it would be pretty easy to haul back to the woods. Couldn’t meet the rate of 1mbf/hr of the forwarder, but the cost would be about 1/3. But that is immaterial as we aren’t doing it that way right now.

It does however highlight the point I have made several times about the cost of purchase and maintenance of machinery vs. horses. The theory is that the machines can facilitate production to sustain themselves with profit, but it is pretty amazing how the repair bills can add up, and they never come at a convenient time.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Mylaine, welcome to DAP. It would help to know where you are located, or at least where you are willing to consider work.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

I think the tractor is about 70 hp. It was a loaner as Ben’s injector pump went south on his own, and then he ran into complications with the field mechanic. It turned out he had forced the pump arbor back into its seat and had bound the plates so it wouldn’t function. The company took the rig back to the shop and got it running, and only charged him 4 hours for the field repair….. but there is a pawl of skepticism about the repair.

Speaking of repairs, boy the horses are shining on this job. The loaner tractor sprung a leak in the hydraulic pump midday Wednesday. We have had a spate of chainsaw failures as well. One Husky went to Ethanol hell, lost a clutch spring in another, a bar tip burned up, and we lost a bar tensioner screw. My truck has been losing coils, and now I can’t get ANY lights to work on my trailer.

Luckily we are getting the softwood out, and we have a good hardwood market close by where we can haul small loads on a flatbed trailer on the way home. If those two butt logs on the cherry go for veneer, they may be worth $1000 or more, @$3500/mbf. We have some great hardwoods scattered throughout so we may be able to pick up the cash-flow considerably.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Scott G;20071 wrote:

…. white pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola)? I thought you guys had that licked for the most part in the NE. ….

Not really. There was a huge Ribes (Gooseberry/Currant, secondary host) eradication program during 1950-60’s, but like all things, it was only partially successful. Now people can by gooseberries and plant them. It is really only a small portion of trees that are affected, and by cutting those trees we can interrupt the life cycle of the fungus.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Scott G;20071 wrote:

…. white pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola)? I thought you guys had that licked for the most part in the NE. ….

Not really. There was a huge Ribes (Gooseberry/Currant, secondary host) eradication program during 1950-60’s, but like all things, it was only partially successful. Now people can by gooseberries and plant them. It is really only a small portion of trees that are affected, and by cutting those trees we can interrupt the life cycle of the fungus.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

mitchmaine;20058 wrote:

hey carl, nice looking job. how big is the woodlot, and area to be thinned. how much do you expect it to cut? looks nice and open from the pictures. good luck, and hey to brad. mitch

We are working in a section of about 50 acres. I expect to cut about 50 mbf of spruce, 20mbf of white pine, and 10-15mbf of hardwood, with possibly 30 cords of wood.

Some sections are open, others are very dense. We’re starting to get a rhythm, although there has been a spate of mechanical failures from chainsaws to tractors. So far the horses have been healthy and active.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Today we cut a black cherry tree that had 2 twelves and a ten that measured 170, 130, and 110 bf.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

First load of logs, roadside, waiting for the trucker.

[Carl Russell]

This is a small patch cut, or overstory removal of red spruce. I cut 12 trees from this little area…. notice the red spruce regeneration that is untouched.

Try that with a skidder.

Ben Canonica from Chelsea, VT., also a horse logger, has brought his tractor drawn forwarder instead of his horses. This landing is about 1/2 mile from the roadside. He is loading about 1MBF and the round trip takes about 3/4 hour. If you look closely, in the center of the photo, just above the pile of logs hidden in the greenery, you can see a brown patch that is my team of horses on a skid trail about to enter the landing.(Just want to ad proof that it is a horse logging job).

Carl

[Carl Russell]

We’ve been pretty busy over the last few weeks.

We improved and cleared a network of trails nearly 1 mile long. Road work was completed prior to any skidding or forwarding. That means stumped, waterbarred with broad-based dips, and crowned. This way the roads will hold up during the entire operation, and all we will need to do is back blade and seed.

We are twitching logs into small landings in the woods where the tractor drawn forwarder can pick them up and haul them to the roadside.

This is one of our larger landing areas where logs can be drawn in from three different directions. It is a large opening, but will eventually play an important role in recreation and wildlife management, as an opening with plantings of wildlife shrubs. Trails leading to and from are already travel corridors, so this should be quite a place to sit and wait.

This is a typical skid trail into a dense stand of red spruce, white pine, and red maple. We are harvesting trees with defects like forks, blister-rust, or marketable trees that are competing with others with good potential.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

I have always roached mine. I like the way it looks, and it is easier that managing a long mane, which I have never been good at. I clip every time I reset shoes.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

dlskidmore;19448 wrote:

Rotational grazing makes a lot of sense, and has so many benefits in increased yield, decreased parasite issues, better fat profiles in the meat… But in my area, there’s enough snow on the ground in winter, I think I’ll still have to put up winter feed. The haying problem is the big stickler in my designs for a low-equipment usage farm. Buying hay from a larger producer that can do it more efficiently than I can looks tempting, but leaves me reliant on outside inputs, which I’d like to wean myself off of over time.

I’m just working my way through this thread, and realize you have moved beyond this, but just want ed to say that as we are building a whole farm system here based in large part on grass-fed livestock, we still buy in a lot of hay for feed. We feed hay at least 5 months, but see it as importing nutrients, as we keep our out 365, except for freezing rain events. Hay chaff, seed, and manure from rotating the feeding areas around our open areas is part of our soil building activities.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Gotta love that man!

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Frickin’ Snow.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Agreed. This website is a perfect example. We can use this technological connection to build community that otherwise we would never be able, but in the long run it will have to the knowledge that there are others out there that keeps us going, not this technology.

I drive a big truck almost every day, but have been putting into place infrastructure and processes that I will be able to succeed right here without the truck.

Carl

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