[mitchmaine]

wow. thanks geoff. the lombard log hauler came from waterville here in maine. alvin lombard. he was the one that invented the lag track or the catapillar track on dozers. the lombard sleds on this site of yours might be sleds for the original lombard. but he says he changes all the names to suit himself so its hard to know for sure.
interesting that steel and welding rod are cheaper for him than hardwood.
glad he saw and saved all that stuff before it became junk iron.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

squeeze a little high fructose corn syrup into the raw milk and we are home free

[mitchmaine]

hey guys, i think grey is right. the pole is up when held between the tugs and front side backers. tight as you can get with no strain on the britchin, or front tugs really until the horses step into or back with the load. and i think the third horse when she steps back, lets the evener “off” and drops the toungue. there is a special (?) yoke some use with d ring that is a solid 4′ bar that could easily be extended for three, but the pole would be offset in that yoke. don’t know if that would make a difference or not except it would appear then you could keep the full strain against the eveners using it. but i do think its the third horse keeping you from getting your pole up where you want it. i think.

[mitchmaine]

hi john, the portland foundary made a line of cast iron wood cookstoves called atlantic. they had a queen, princess, duchess, etc. alot like eds glenwood. we hace a queen atlantic and its the heartbeat of our house with a fire in it from october til april. we heat and eat off it, and when the liners crack, i gob it up with more refactory cement to keep it alive. sure do love that stove. an aside, mother nature threw us a slider here the other day. 38 degrees, fifty mph wind and 3-4 inches of rain, and it was colder at disneyland in orlando than it was up here in caribou, maine. go figure. keep warm, and happy christmas. mitch and penny

[mitchmaine]

heres another one. if the hung tree won’t pull or roll out of the other tree, hook up a snatch block and pull the hung up tree towards the base of the tree its hung in (or backwards). It works half the time. And you can put a roll on it.

on second thought, do not try this method at all. its dumb. i take it for granted everyone here works in the woods and i know that isn’t true. this is one of those methods you have to feel your way through, and the risk, of course, is that you pull the tree back up and it comes over backwards and kills you, so let me do the stupid stuff and i’ll try and keep my mouth shut and my advice to myself in the future. sorry.

And like Tristan says, a push pole is a great tool. A forked sapling 12-15 feet long caught under a limb or a knot works wonders. We just cradled it, cupped in two hands in our laps and use your legs, if that didn’t work push it up on a peavey. I probably pushed more wood over with a pole than with wedges.
Cutting big frozen red oak was the worst. Especially if it had a sweep or a lean to it. No matter how deep you cut your scarf, you couldn’t finish the backcut before it started to go and sometimes it would split clear to the first limb. Very scary.
Some would wrap two twists of chain with a binder around the trunk to keep it from splitting. The guys that showed me how to cut never made a bore cut. You can’t make a plunge cut with a crosscut saw, and old dogs don’t listen to new tricks. Their chainsaws even had handles on the end of the bar for the other guy.
Scotts trigger is the way to go. Finish both sides of the cut, set your wedges, snip the back, and away she goes.
Cutting wood here on this computer is much easier than it is out back.:D

[mitchmaine]

i cut lots of wood with skidders. working alone with my axe and felling wedges collecting cobwebs on the tool bench at home.
you jump off the skidder, slice a wedge cut, jamb in your saw, make a back cut and pull out, in case it sets back. set the chocker, jump on the machine and push it over and haul the tree out into the skidder trail and limb it out there. no thinking at all.
trees get hung up alot using this method. no matter, right? well, every once in a while a tree gets so lodged, you can pull it free of the earth with the skidder and not be able to free it. cutting the other tree becomes the only option, and thats scary. if you can’t pull it down with a skidder what chance does a horse have?
carl points out making your plan first, and i agree totally. figure it out before you cut. things will still go wrong but don’t take it personal. good luck with it.

[mitchmaine]

hi george, i have to agree with carl and scott about the depth of the notch and hinge. on the backcut you could make your bore cut on the low side of the cut, determine your hinge, and then swing a full arc with your back cut, setting wedges behind the cut as you go, finish the cut holding the tree with the hinge on the uphill side and beat hell out of those wedges.
if they do set back on you, you might make a plunge cut into the backcut (square in the middle towards the center of the tree) and the kerf of that cut will take the point of your wedge. bore in longer than the length of the wedge.
i was always told 9 out of ten trees would fall or grow to the south. especially the tall ones. they look good and plumb, but the limbs towards the light are a bit longer and fuller. don’t matter, they love to mess with your brain. its a living thing, right? good luck, and keep looking up. mitch

[mitchmaine]

hi rick, yes, this man, too, got a job in the new scott mill in hinckley making better money, but it was obvious that the satisfaction (worth the money) came from the “real job”.
hard to wrap a word or phrase around it, and i can’t seem to, but i think you know what i mean.

[mitchmaine]

hey big horses, how big are your horses? thats some trailer you got there. nice work.
never had a trailer of my own. borrowed before and don’t like that too much. i used to hire trucking and move my horses on a woodlot and hovel them there for the job, or til i took a break and came home for a bit. it meant driving 20 – 25 miles back and forth twice on days you weren’t cutting and that got old, but rick’s numbers seem right enough, so it costs no matter what you do. part of the cost of doing business. never liked leaving horses in the woods three or four towns away.

[mitchmaine]

hi donn, i have a set of belly backer and a set of dring and when hooking three, somebody has an odd harness. it’s ok if two with same harness hold the pole but sometimes it just don’t work that way so i just hung quarter straps on the d ring harness and snap in a breast strap on one if i need to make harnesses that don’t match match. mitch

[mitchmaine]

great photos of work in progress. easy to follow along. great job.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

good morning erika, can you find out for us what that really means, and if there is a way that they (or we?) plan to “actually” support animal power, and most importantly, what led to the decision. its great to know we are on the radar. i just don’t want to be a target while we are there.
trying to stay positive here, its just that flying under the radar always worked best for me. i’d support it here with our own farm bureau if i knew what i was supporting. can you find out more? thanks, mitch

[mitchmaine]

hey rod, i tired that a while ago with a pair of mares i had that liked to go. i tried harnessing them up and cross tying them side by side on the barn floor in the shade with the doors open, and drove off for a couple hours and did it for a couple of days.
it worked really good. they stood good and didn’t have the same snap as before.
i think they associated being harnessed with work, and that meant “go”. harnessing them and letting them stand got them off it. mitch

[mitchmaine]

hello wolfgang, very nice looking dumpcart there. are the blocks behind the wheels a brake?
if so, how is it applied? or does it have another function.

mitch
pretty country, by the way.

[mitchmaine]

hi john, nice looking countryside you have there.
sooner or later, all tractors end up like yours, stuck some where. trouble is, the bigger they are, and more horsepower, and all wheel drive just gets them further in from where you can hook on with something else to get them out.
same temperature, same snow here, reminds me i gotta start doing the same thing. good luck there,

mitch

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