[mitchmaine]

mark,
hows that scoot coming? you gave me some courage here to rebuild my old scoot. i lent out the good one so i chopped up the other to get the irons and stake pockets back. i have an old set of runners i had cut out 12 years ago laying around. trying to figure if its worth it or have another pair cut. i have been yarding with our sap sled which works ok but not great. good luck with it.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

hey geoff,
sleds i’ve seen had the sideboards you mentioned, about two planks high. and the seats were planks laid over the top sideways, like thwarts in a boat. everybody sat looking frontwards.
the thing that made the pung was gthe height of the front runners. turned up square to the ground as much as a foot and a half, with the shafts on a roll at the top of the runners. the tree was bolted through a cross member in the shafts with a forked rod connecting the single tree to the front bunk.
i think pung is an indian word. a shortened version of tobbogan. something like that.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

carl, scott. correct me. if i started my backcut with a bore cut and came straight back parallel with the hinge til the tip popped out the other side, pulled the saw and set it back in that hole and finshed the backcut leaving that livewood to hold the tree wouldn’t you atleast have a backcut with one plane? isthat the proper method of making that cut?
and more importantly, if you looked up and saw (knew) your tree was going over where you wanted it, would you bother to go through all the motions or just cut it?

mitch

[mitchmaine]

they used to scale hardwood pulp at 5100 lbs. per cord. a cord of wood is about 600′. so 350mbf would weigh in at 2975 lb. at that rate, and when you figure the pulp mills are trying to screw you anyways, sounds like carls estimate is pretty close.

[mitchmaine]

ouch! scott, what was that all about???????????????

[mitchmaine]

That was painful. He sure made a project out of hacking away at that tree. A beaver might have done a better job. Don’t seem like he had to cut the center out of so small a tree? And either his rakers were down too low or he tried sawing a rock, but his saw was dull as a hoe. And the guy comin’ in to sweep up that mess is gonna shoot him cause he dropped trees to every point on the compass. Maybe they cut wood different in Sweden, or its just snowin out and I have to plow and want to be in the woods that’s makin me grumpy and pickin on this poor fella.

[mitchmaine]

good or bad, my money is on the amish. they are survivors.

[mitchmaine]

hi jen,
i think if you have a written or verbal agreement with someone about how you treat their horse once they give its care over to you, you are bound to the agreement by accepting the horse.
i have an old mare, and am looking for someone who will give her a good home. so i’m on the other side of that coin, so to speak. she worked her butt off for me without any complaint, so i think its my part of the deal to find a safe place for her.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

hi mark,
over here, scoots were 3-4″ thick. the runners were usually spruce (light and strong). and the shoes to wear were usually beech pinned on with 1″ hardwood pins. the shoes wear fast enough and steel pins don’t so the steel pins would be dragging in the ground. the hardwood pins wear off at the same rate the beech shoes do. the shoes were also pinned on butt forward so it would wear smooth. kinda like dragging a deer out head first so his hair lays flat and don’t work against you.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

@Jim Garvin 23376 wrote:

I’d be concerned that the concrete would set up before the mules were able to deliver it….must have used some slow-setting admixtures to it!!

Here are a couple of pictures I took back in 2009, in Death Valley, of the 20-mule team Borax operations. How many people here remember watching “Death Valley Days”? Be careful….you’re dating yourselves!!

my mom sent away some soapbox tops and got me a plastic model of the twenty mule team. it sat on the bookshelf by my bed till i left home. the animals all had names as well as the driver, boraxo bill, who rode one of the wheelers. the wheel team were horses and 18 mules.
i believed everything the old ranger told me.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

donn, good news and thanks. every good, active, thriving community, needs services. and the shop guy, repairman or tinkerer is key. he’s the one everyone leans on the hardest for support.
are you gonna offer any rebuilts for sale?
good luck with your shop

mitch

[mitchmaine]

thanks john, happy new year to you and your family.
and happy 51st birthday, by the way (january 2, right?)
happy, healthy and prosperous new year to each and everyone one here.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

simon,
thank you for the photographs. interesting collar and hames. the throat is very open. wonderful harness. thanks again.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

Simon,
I was looking through you photos on your website, trying to see differences and similarities in your harness and the d-ring. The obvious thing to me was not seeing any kind of a neckyoke or sidebackers. It was difficult for me to see how your team held back the load on a pole? Nice looking harness. Clean and simple. Wondering if you could elaborate a bit more on the harness. It doesn’t seem to have a tug. But rather the shafts clip into the ring? And when you are twitching single on the ground are there chains to the spreader? From the same rings? I can make the leap from your harness to ours. Pop a ring in where the sidebacker crosses the tug and you have a d-ring harness.
Congrats on winning your forestry award. The prince of wales as well. Wow.
I got a chance to meet Your second place winner, Frankie woodgate, while she was tuning up one of her horses at jon waterers farm in devon. Great people. Beautiful country. Hope your new year is a good one.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

thank you geoff, we still have dialup. so it took a half hour to see the first six minutes. we did that twice so now i am an expert on the first six minutes of the film. i can get it up here from northeast archives, and i will now. i just never have. there is another film called another day, another era. it’s some snips of this film, but interviews some of the loggers from that time. they are most 80 -90 years old but give a great account of the time. its a pretty interesting film too.

mitch

[Author]

Posts