[mitchmaine]

thanks carl.

[mitchmaine]

i can read it. hope you get this reply. mitch

[mitchmaine]

hey geoff, the vikings thought at the winter solstace (christmas?) they needed to have a festival to encourage odin the fly across the night sky with his team (santa claus?) and bring back the sun. so they would burn the biggest stick of wood they had which was their yule log. yule is the norse wood for wheel. using a log for a wheel seems to be a simple idea unless no one has ever done it before, and then it might be genius. probably a concept that popped up all over the known, and unknown world at different times without interaction between the different cultures. anyway, happy christmas, mitch

[mitchmaine]

hey geoff, anyone whoever milked cows in the spring and had to deal with wet cowtails knows poop can get in your mouth and you will survive it. my dad used to pick up soil in our garden and taste it for “sweetness” and he lived to a ripe old age. i haven’t developed a taste for it yet, but i’m not as afraid of shit as some would worry you to be. penny and i certify some of our crops. we grow organically anyway, but it is about recordkeeping. we have been asked gently to bag our horses and collect the waste while we till. manure has to be composted 120 days before harvest. i keep wanting to ask about the deer and coons who visit our feilds regularly. but thats another day. hey, i liked and have heard your frozen logger song. not just a common bum, but a special kind of a bum, thats what i always wanted to be. its a beauty. mitch

[mitchmaine]

i think about it like you do, erika, but doesn’t it seem ironic that the unwanted filth is in fact plant food. organic plant food we need to successfully grow crops. it might be a sign of our culture to worry about this issue, when the e-coli problems in huge processing plants comes from polluted wash water. polluted how? and the finger is pointed, seemingly, to punish the small producer. we have to jump through the same hoops as the big guys, and that seems fair, until you start to explore the costs, and if you are as synical as i, we usually get to the conspiracy theory pretty fast. bummer. seriously, my family has always grown their own food on composted manure and some on green manure with no trouble. we have made cider from apple drops forever and no one in our group ever got ill from it. i just don’t get it sometimes. mitch

[mitchmaine]

I bought a pair of mares once that came with harness. And parade bits, a pair of liverpools. The guy said “she (near horse) really needs these bits”. No way was I gonna have bits like that on my hosses, so I grabbed another pair of bridles with snaffle bits and ten minutes later, my sulky plow and the front end of my truck were stove to pieces (no exaggeration). So I put her bit in and went out to war with her and she was instantly, the miracle horse from heaven. Third slot and she wouldn’t move, second slot and she went beautiful, first slot and she pulled at you, and hooked up to the bits you had your hands full, she was all lathered up, and the job you were doing didn’t turn out so well. Her mate, star, was loose and went where she went at the same speed, but jenny was always hooked into the 2nd slot. And life was good, and they stayed and worked til they died here. And now all my bridles have those bits. Hooked at the bit, its just a straight bit with no leverage on the chain, and quite mild. Add some leverage and it’s a different tool. I think it helps with trying to learn line tension. No one can learn line tension with a ton horse pulling you faster than you can walk. You dial up the pressure til you control the horse and you drive with your fingertips, not with arms three inches longer.
I’m not trying to sell a new religion, don’t even care what you choose for your own harness, all I’m saying is when you look your gift horse in the mouth and she has a callous in the corner of her mouth, you might want to try one of these bits and harness up away from the pickup.
Best o’ luck and happy thanksgiving to everyone, mitch

[mitchmaine]

hi george, i agree with rick. i hesitated to respond cause i think its hard to know when or if someone understands what you are saying and can get into more trouble cutting where they shoudn’t. we used to cut lots of spruce and the heavier the tree, the worse the tear. we used to notch the tree and on the same line, girdle the tree just through the bark into white wood. then make the backcut an inch higher so you could see the hinge and make sure you weren’t cutting it off the stump. when you say plunging through the hinge, do you mean cutting out the center of the tree? when the diameter of the tree was bigger than two lengths of the bar, we would plunge into the face cut and cut out the center of the tree so the back cut was deeep enough to knock it over. anyway, be careful out there and don’t get bit. mitch

[mitchmaine]

i’d like to say yes to that cultivator if i could see a photo of it.
mitch

[mitchmaine]

good news to me carl, i’ve read alot of regional papers that were good reading but of no use to me in my neck of the woods, and thats what we seem to be missing is an overview of the subject, simple enough to apply to many, hopefully all, and boiled down, says what this is. i tried a few times and missed, and gave up, but here’s hopin you do better. i think you have it in you.
mitch

[mitchmaine]

they threw me out of lif after a few days for talking too much, but not before i got a chance to put a face on carl, erika, jen and scott. great to meet you guys. i had the best time, hey to jason, john and jim and thanks for all the work you do putting that thing together. lif has the same flavor that neapfd has, good food and people all interested and excited to be doing the same thing and having others to share that with. thanks for letting me be a part of it.
mitch

[mitchmaine]

hey there donn, i don’t pretend to be knowledgeable on d-ring, but i’ve never seen a set with a clip from the front tug to the ring. it was always sewn into the ring and the adjustment was done at the hame. i broke down once and lost the bushing where the tug bolts to the hame so i repaired it with just the bolt and the clip broke out in a short time without the bushing to fill out the clip. so maybe you do need that moonshaped bushing, although with just leather, it takes that shape with no problem.
les barden told me, like you thought, to put the belly girt and saddle where it ought to be a size the front tug to fit. it will seem short, but no worries. and he also said ” drive a few 20d nails through the clip and right through the tug, saw them to length, and peen them over.” good enough for him is good enough for me. good luck, mitch

[mitchmaine]

hello piper, the maine organic farmers and gardeners association in unity, maine has an apprenticeship program thirty years old now. one horse farmer, paul birdsall, has tutored well over a hundred future farmers by way of the same program. google mofga and see what comes up. might be worth a look. good luck with your search. mitch

[mitchmaine]

hi carl, it sounds (familiar) like the forwarder was a fixed cost, and the reasonable stumpage was a fixed cost, and probably? the trucker or log buyer gave you a roadside price? fixing his costs. my point, of course, is usually the guy who gets the last check (teamster and chopper) are the ones who assume the most risk and give in the end to balance the sums. thats always been a problem the way i see it. depressed market or not, everyone should give a little to help out the process. you must remember when the chopper had the contract at the mill. you new that wood was worth $16 a ton at the mill, and you hired and paid the trucker. that was a negotiable fee. 12 dollars a cord and twentyfive per thousand. old prices, i know, but just an example. interesting, that its only $38 per ton after 35 years. just rambling again. best wishes, mitch

[mitchmaine]

hi george, my tedder is a sitrex. made in italy. 11′ hub to hub with a 14′ sweep. it looses too many teeth. i crank it up a little and don’t break so many teeth but leave a little hay. i found a sweet spot this summer and got better results. i like it, but i used a kuhn behind a tractor for a neighbor and thats a nice tedder. same size, i think, maybe a little heavier and not so kind on the horses? three horses pull my tedder with no problems up what hills i have, but you might think this is kansas over here next to your green mountains. you could easily throw in a fourth horse. plenty of room without stepping on the kicked hay. its a fun job. you don’t have to be so fussy, you can go around again if you wish. horses don’t get a lathered up. best wishes, mitch

[mitchmaine]

hi john, the math says a 14″ plow wants a 38″ evener so you would need a 57″ 3 horse evener. thats bigger than the one pioneer sells by 3″. sounds big but so does 14″. you might try making a hardwood version with adjustable holes in it, and trying it till it goes to your liking. good luck, mitch

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