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Hey Rob, glad you made it on the site. I was just telling my daughter about how your son trains his ponies. What a great thing. How about some pictures when you get a chance?

George

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Hey Donn,

Sorry no pictures, but the hay is drying nicely. I think it will be ready to bale tomorrow, but I will be at the farmer’s market all day. Kristan will probably ted once tomorrow and we will rake and bale Sunday.

George

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The end of the shaft looks nice and smooth. I will take a look at the bushing once I remove the seal. Norm at McNairs says that you can buy a seal puller from a car parts store. I forgot how I pulled the one on my last mower, but she doesn’t leak anymore. So I must have accomplished the task without marring the housing.

George

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So I got the pitman shaft out of the mower. I tried rapping on it with hardwood. After shredding several sticks of 4/4 maple I put the torch to the threading pitman shaft being careful not to heat the pinion too much. I then spun the flywheel with a pipe wrench while locking up the pinion with a piece of steel rod.

Do you change out your pitman shaft bearing since you have it torn apart (at least partially) when you are replacing the seals. The bearing in my mower looked good and spun freely. I also assume that the bushing is ok (this is in back of the bearing, correct) b/c there is no slop with the shaft. Should I leave them both?

George

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Hey Donn, can you explain further?

@Donn Hewes 34882 wrote:

I have usually found a combination of a shackle and a wrench with put the force on the meat of the flywheel and reduce the risk of breaking them.

By “shackle”, do you mean a clevis? Also, do you (or Jay) ever put any heat to the pinion to help unscrew the shaft. The last time I did this (when I finally figured out which way the flywheel turns), I ended up having to rap on the pinion with a chisel – risky business, but I finally got it without marring the pinion.

Thanks.

George

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Bradley:

I lead 4 horses all on my right side. I believe they should be able to lead in any position and walk at my pace. Every spring when it is time to go back out to pasture, we go back to school. I get a long, light branch that can reach the nose of the far horse. My expectation is that all horses follow my lead – no one stepping ahead or lagging behind. This is enforced with the branch. If the far horse starts stepping ahead to fast he gets a swoosh in front of the nose. If he doesn’t respect that, he gets a bump. If one of the middle horses slows down, I reach over their hind quarters and s/he gets a tap. Every time I correct a horse, they hear their name. If the horse nearest to me slows down, I reach around my back with the branch in my left and tap her but while giving a pull on her halter.

We gee, haw, slow down, speed up etc, etc. I stop every so often and rub and scratch the horses with the stick. They should not fear the stick, just respect it. Pretty soon they get it. Sounds complected with 4 leads and a stick, but it is not bad. The trick is applying just enough pressure to get the desired result. If you decided to give it a try, you can experiment with one or two. Since my horses know the routine, I generally use the stick on the first day and then it gets tossed. I then will use my longest lead rope (in hand) for any corrections (when needed). In the case of the far horse, I will have to step ahead and in front of the horses to reach the space in front of his nose – swoosh as a warning and a whack if need be.

All of this said, if I have to go more than 300 or 400 ft, I will ride one horse and “pony” the rest (1 on one side, 2 on the other). With the horse I am riding, I clip the lead rope on one side of the halter and tie it into the other side. Ditto the expectations above – all horses should be able to be ridden and “ponied” in any position. I have found that for longer distances, riding is easier, faster, and more fun.

George

PS Did my guitar tuner ever show up after the logging workshop last fall?

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Tim, have you sold the rights to this yet? Maybe time for a career change……Hollywood is calling. Excellent film, thanks. Keep them coming.

George

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I think that would be a called a 3 beam sled. It is different from a scoot b/c it has a fixed pole and 3 fixed (judging from the picture) bunks as opposed to 2 articulating bunks. This looks like a similar sled made in the movie “Ben’s Mill”. You should check it out if you haven’t seen it. I agree with John that the beams look upside down. Maybe the rave pins have enough play that you can pop them off and put them right side up.

I am not sure what the advantages of a 3 beam sled are. Maybe Mitch or Carl could chime in on that one. Otherwise it looks serviceable from the picture.

George

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We use have Maremma. I don’t know about donkeys.

George

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We have cleared a good bit of land with goats and hogs. I think the key on the goat front is not so much breed as density. For example 6-10 mature goats in a 165′ net fence should decimate any brush or browse in a few days. Then you can move them. High density with short(ish) rotations will ensure that most of the brush/browse is impacted. If you put them in a huge area over an extended period they will only hit the preferred plants. Moving net fence isn’t too bad. We routinely take down and set up 6 nets/day all summer long.

Then the hogs move in after the goats – 6 or so should do the job in that same area. I have found the key with the hogs is density and frequent movement as well. Do not keep them in one area for more than a week or you may run into the compaction mentioned above. I have my goats in 42″ net fence and train the hogs to 1 strand of polywire. I do not fence them together as I like to feed grain to the hogs.

George

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Peyton:

There are a lot more folks with more experience than me who I am sure will chime in, but here are my 2 cents based on what you wrote. They should pull an empty wagon up a hill without breaking into a trot. My experience is that you have read your horses before they change gait and apply appropriate pressure to check their speed before it happens. Easier said than done, but after time you should be able to read their increase in energy or affect, before they change gaits. I feel that is more effective than trying to slow them once they change.

Some other (and easier) things you might also try are not to feed them any oats or grain for a while (or ever). Those carbs and soluble sugars may exacerbate their excitability. Finally, that is a lot of disk for a single team that hasn’t been worked for a while. Generally, a team pulls one set of disks and not a tandem like you have in the picture (those were likely used on a tractor). I would try working them single on smaller loads. Once they are moving out well, stopping, and standing single maybe try pairing them up again with a lighter load.

Good luck.

George

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Jay, if I didn’t have to make a matching neck yoke I guess I would have tried the smaller evener. My horses aren’t that much bigger (1700-1800 lbs) and the team using this mower is even smaller (1000 lbs each), but I want as much air flow as possible while mowing. I will pay more attention to the interference with grass that you mentioned.

George

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There is a great recipe for Chicken Pot Pie in the second to last Small Farmers Journal if you identify the offender(s).

George

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@JaredWoodcock 34051 wrote:

but will I be able to pull the occasional big log (12 foot oak around 24-30 inch dia.) with him using a log arch.
jared

Jared:

I have a stout 950 lb halflinger that I ground skid firewood with. She is a great animal and pulls, pound for pound, more than either of my bigger horses (1700 -1800 lbs). Even so, I don’t think she could move that oak log which weighs in excess of 2000 lbs http://www.woodweb.com/cgi-bin/calculators/calc.pl?calculator=log_weight. Based on my experience, I think a single halflinger is better suited for firewood (arc or no arch) than for hauling out saw logs.

George

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@Countymouse 34016 wrote:

I suppose I thought his natural guarding tendancies would just guide his behavior…

Andy:

I think you have it here. I think, generally speaking, dogs either have the instinct or not. I have a couple of Border Collies for herding, a Maremma for guarding, and a Jack Russel for rodent control – all specialists in their respective fields. I think you can have limited success herding with a dog without a lot of natural instinct b/c you are constantly there guiding their behavior. With guard dogs or rodent hunters, they are expected to work independently. When my JR was a puppy, I caught rats in “have a heart traps” and released them in her presence. Before she even saw the rat and caught a scent, she went nuts. Once released, she quickly caught and killed them. That said, I don’t think this was necessary. This dog will not stop and hunting and killing rodents – not something taught.

I had a Great Pyrenees before the Maremma. He was a decent guard dog, but in a whole different league than the Maremma. The Maremma never lest the goats out of her sight and is extremely aggressive toward any perceived threat (with the exception of people). She is super-active all the time – barking, marking her territory, etc.

Maybe you can try the trap idea backed up with praise and see if you can get some results?

Good luck.

George

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