[Andy Carson]

I think whether you should learn to shoe your own horses probably depends at least a little on how many horses you have and how often they are in shoes. I only have one draft but keep shoes on her most of the year. For that, I pay about $600 a year. I have looked into a couple quick two week courses that might make me a reasonably competant farrier since my horse doesn’t really have any hoof issues. The tuition to these places is anywhere from $1000 to $2000. I would guess that if I look hard for used equipment, I might be able to find the tools I would need for $600-1200. At any rate, that means it would take anywhere from 3-6 years for this venture to pay for itself. That’s not counting my time off from work to take the course and my time spent actually doing the shoeing. For me, it’s not worth it right now, especially considering the risk of me injuring my horse. It was useful to do the calculation though…

[Andy Carson]

Just an update if anyone is curious… As spring has hit and I’ve got the chance to do some other work, I have pretty much abandoned the “reins of the neck” approach. After some practice, I have found that I can give a lot more accurate directions with one rein over the shoulder and one under the opposite armpit. I can see why this is a more popular position. I may still use the “reins over the neck” approach if I am doing very repeative tasks that do not require alot of direction and require me to move my body around alot, but most tasks seem to not require this… I still can’t get the “reins under both armpits” position to work for me, as the reins still tend to fall down over time (the slack side in turns drops a little every time), but not big deal as long as I have something that works.

[Andy Carson]

Thanks Anthony, your post of the related thread was what made me look into this video in the first place… Everything the Nordell’s are doing on the video seems to make alot of sense to me, and the fact that they publish so often gives me a good feeling that their techniques are accepted and good to incorporate. I’ll be checking out the media for sure. Hell, maybe I’ll even go to the workshop! I could probably use a little formal instruction…

[Andy Carson]

Also, if anyone has any books or other referance material that discusses this type of farming and techniques associated, please pass this on. It seems I have alot to learn!

[Andy Carson]

The guy I worked for was Wayne Westberg. The farm is really between Moscow and Troy, we sometimes delivered grain to the elevators in Troy, but more often the the Joel elevators. When I worked on the Westburg farm, I worked with Tom Umbarger, who had horses he used for logging at the time. I know tom doesn’t work there anymore, and am not sure when he ended up. I helped Tom on a logging jub once, but didn’t get to drive the horses… At any rate, that was many years ago and I’m not sure whether he logs with them anymore.

[Andy Carson]

I have had a couple farriers and they have changed radically different rates. The first one charged about $200 for four shoes. The one I use now charges $120 for 4 new shoes hot fitted with borium and $75 for a reset. He’s a newer guy, and isn’t long out of school, but does a great job. I am glad I shopped around a little. I have heard the Amish can be a lot cheaper, but you have to go pick them up and drop them off. Not very convenient…

[Andy Carson]

Nope, I haven’t lived in IDaho for quite a while. I live near pittsburgh now.

[Andy Carson]

It’s fun to see how many people on ther site are from Idaho! I grew up on a small farm near Buhl, ID (by twin falls). Later on, my family moved to Moscow ID, and I worked on a farm near Troy. I don’t get back as often as I should, but it’s definately a part of me. I do like western PA too…

[Andy Carson]

After some trial and error, this is the way I attached the leather to the traces. I seems to help with the rubbing but it’s hard to know for sure as I haven’t been doing exactly the same jobs. At any rate, I thought I would share in case anyone else wants to try something similar. I also like that it’s removable I won’t ever be worst than I started out.

[Andy Carson]

I am mostly maintaining speed and stopping, but I use them for turning too. I just lean my head to the right or left, rub my neck and cheek against the rein, and lean back gently to turn. It’s not a lot of force, but she’s really light in the mouth and it seems to work. I am sure I could not navigate cones with this approach, but when I’m slip scooping, it pretty repetative work. She pretty much knows the path after a couple rounds and doesn’t need tons of direction from me. I would guess that she’s 50% on autopilot as long as she can feel something on the other end of the lines… So really, when I turn her to turn left (for example) I am telling her WHEN to turn left rather than THAT she should turn left, if you know what I mean. I am also there to correct her if she does something wrong, but I can’t guide every step with the lines over my neck. Perhaps this is a downside of the reins over the neck approach? Maybe if I got more practice with the reins under the pits approach I would eventually learn to have “quieter armpits” and have a better ability to direct? How much manuverability is it reasonable to expect without your hands on the reins?

[Andy Carson]

How cool! I would have never guessed a cow would do this, and it sure looks like a lot of fun!

[Andy Carson]

The most important equation I know for pressure and gases is pressure x volume = pressure x volume. From what I remember, this equation is pretty accurate in normal situations and becomes inaccurate if gases are compressed or decompressed very quickly or to very high pressures and heat is generated or lost from the system. So lets say you were using a 1 cubic foot oxygen tank (that’s a pretty big tank), that’s 1728 cubic inches (12x12x12=1728). Let’s say we start the tank out at 1 atmosphere pressure (or 15 psi). If 864 (1728/2) cubic inches of fluid is pumped into the tank, the pressure would double to 30 psi, still not enough to lift your 2 inch cylinder (500 pounds/3.14= 159 pounds). If we add another 432 cubic inches (864/2) of fluid, the pressure would double again to 60 psi, still not enough… To reach 159 psi, you would need to add 1565 cubic inches of fluid (15×1728=159 x volume of air, volume of fluid = 1728 – volume of air). If we pick a maximum pressure of 800 psi, this will be reached after adding 1696 cubic inches of fluid (15×1728=800 x (1728-volume of fluid)). As these tanks are sometimes filled to 3000 psi, 800 psi is definitely safe. Unfortunately, you only have 131 cubic inches (1696-1565) to work for you. That’s enough to lift Johns cylinder about 3 times (131/(3.14×12)), but if you are doing jobs requiring larger volumes of fluid, it might be better to have the tank under some pressure before any fluid is pumped into the system. If this same tank had 100 psi air in it before any fluid was added (like from a home air compressor) it would reach 159 psi when only 641 cubic inches of fluid are added and would not exceed 800 psi until 1512 cubic inches of fluid are added. That is 871 cubic inches of fluid capable of delivering more than 159 psi, so you could lift John’s cylinder about 23 times! Much better to start with a prepressurized vessel!

[Andy Carson]

I, for one, have tremendous respect for the work haflinger sized horses can do. Even if you get into heavy logging someday, I have a hard time imagining a diversified farm where a haflinger type could not earn his or her keep. As you are horse shopping, you might want to try out a few horses that are haflinger sized, but not purebreds. Sometimes these horses get overlooked and you might find some real gems in terms of training and temperament.

[Andy Carson]

I like this hydraulic accumulator idea alot. Another type of hydraulic accumulator stores energy by using a hydraulic cylinder to compress a large spring. That might give you more options to play with. Possibly a very stiff recycled coil spring from a junk yard (maybe with a spring constant of 400 pounds per inch)? I would be careful about how you put this together (if you try it) as a breakage on the housing of a compressed coil spring could be very dangerous. Maybe I’ll play with the math and see if this might work… If you have 500 pounds to lift with a 12 inch stroke a 2 inch bore (surface area = 3.14), that is about 38 cubic inches of fluid (3.14×12) at a minimum of 159 psi (500/3.14). If you put a 4 inch bore cylinder (area = 12.6) on the spring, it will generate 159 psi at a compression of 5.0 inches (400 x inches compressed / 12.6 = 159 psi). To produce 38 cubic inches more fluid, the spring will need to be compressed another 3.0 inches (38/12.6) and the fluid would be at 255 psi (400×8/12.6). i think this has potential, but you will have to be careful with the spring stiffness and cylinder size. The potential of this system to store energy and oil volume gets exponentially better as you increase cylinder bore and spring stiffness and mathematically seems kinda marginal for this application. Finding and buying a big cylinder and really stiff spring might be just as hard as finding an air type accumulator designed for this work. If you have access to salvage from heavy equipment, though, that might change things… Be careful with your spring housing if you try this!!!

[Andy Carson]

Thanks Erik, this sounds like a good plan. I am thinking I will try to do the plowing myself. It is alot of plowing, but I can divide this into chunks and take all year to do it. Either way, it will be good experience and we ought to be plowing champions at the end of this year!!! I’m not sure I will be able to do 3 successive plantings with one horse by myself, but I bet 2 plantings will do alot to improve the land even if I can’t make it to 3. Should I not be concerned about the nitrogen? I was thinking of maybe planting rye and field peas over the winter.
-Andy

[Author]

Posts