[near horse]

@Carl Russell 23744 wrote:

now I kind of think that Taylor Johnson could put a pretty nasty twist on a big piece of wood……:eek:

And we see how those “lumberjack competitions” got started!

[near horse]

Hi Main-yak (is that pronounced maniac?),

I didn’t know that the undercoat of yaks was used in spinning (I guess that’s who’d use it) although I know muskox undercoat called qivuit (spelling) is really fine and valuable. Who do you sell your yak “wool” to?

Regarding milking – were your heifers nursing at the time you tried to milk? You might have lost a lot to those buggers. Also, one of the arts to milking, like lots of animal husbandry stuff, involves comfort and repetition. Milk let down can be inhibited by stress (even the simple stress of a human grabbing their teats). Persist twice a day for a few days and see if things don’t improve.

You can milk almost any mammal – from rats to elephants. The amount of milk you get will obviously vary – Mongolian herders milk horses for crying out loud. Give it a chance and good luck.

BTW – you took yaks into the backcountry? That would turn some heads.

[near horse]

Hi Mark,

We have a Golden Retriever/Pyranees cross that certtainly fit s the bill in most ways. As my wife says, he’s head of homeland security. He will let you know if there’s anything going on out of the ordinary (barking) as well as run off coyotes and other perceived threats (crows trying to steal his food) but is not a herder. Will stick around home – not a roamer (but he’s castrated). He respects the horses and keeps his distance. Good and friendly with family and familiar folks but protective when unknown people show up – he won’t bite but he is an intimidating big dog (about 100#). The only time that’s trouble is when the UPS or FedEx guys show up.

Very smart dog, can open the door and let himself out, taps doorknob with his nose to come in ….

Down side – a freakin’ hairy mess and really big dogs usually don’t live much beyond 10yrs or so.

[near horse]

@Tim Harrigan 23608 wrote:

http://www.mwps.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=c_Products.viewProduct&catID=720&productID=6482&skunumber=MWPS%2D45&crow=1

Here is one that comes to mind. It is a 2000 publication but it has a lot of good information. Check with MWPS, you could also try Amazon or ebay.

Andy – You might try university interlibrary loan. Surprising what ag pubs the land grant schools have in their library

A couple of clicks and here you go:

Delaware Valley College
Joseph Krauskopf Memorial Library

DOYLESTOWN, PA 18901 United States

[near horse]

@Carl Russell 23708 wrote:

Really I don’t know what it weighed, but it weighed more than I could roll with a peavey…. and that rarely happens.
I have a cart that could have probably been outfitted with a cradle hitch, but I prefer to use a sled as the log is quite high off of the ground,…..

Carl

Ya, but Carl, you’re a wood beast! We’re all only mere mortals.

More seriously, and without getting into any astrophysical atom splitting stuff (my head still hurts from the evener thread) – does log length affect the drag? I’m thinking that, as you’re saying with the arch (I think) that too low of an angle drags too much log on the ground, although the front is raised some. The sled can potentially get more of that same log off the ground = less resistance. But, once the log is only supported by the sled upfront and a point on the ground at the back, aren’t we increasing the drag by having it focused all at on small point? Or does the angle with horizontal have to exceed 45degrees before the weight is being transferred back to the tail? I know you can also reduce that drag by moving the log further forward onto the bunk so it’s supporting more but ………

[near horse]

Hi Mark –

I went to a talk with Jared Diamond as the invited speaker a few years ago. He was interesting to listen to. One point he made (and I think makes in the book) is to learn from the experiences of others (good and bad) to address a problem and therein lies the “hope”. With modern communication technology we can talk to people on the other side of the world (like VT/NH) and perhaps find solutions – if only people would quit texting “what they’re having for lunch etc!”

Guns, Germs and Steel by J. Diamond is the precursor to Collapse and is his attempt to determine why “western European culture etc” has come to dominate the planet. Funny, he mentioned that it was a question posed to him by a friend in New Guinea that started him thinking about this – essentially “Why do you guys have all the stuff?”

I know I’m the “gloom and doom” sayer with regard to some of this but, in fact, it is almost a relief to know that I’m just here now and then I’ll be gone – like billions of people and living things before me. In between, hopefully, how I spent my time provided me with some level of satisfaction?.

I’ll take a look at The Resilient Gardner – nice title for life in general, don’t ya think? Example – I’m finishing up some work on my sled and the big snow storm/cold temps have now changed to 40F and rain for the next week. Resiliency! Arrgh.

[near horse]

I know log weights can vary but is 10# per bf a good loose estimate? Carl, I see you scaled at about 325bf and thought weight was at 3500#.

[near horse]

Hi Andy,

Nice graph and so it brings up some questions for me (again). Would the value of having the larger setback be that it would more quickly shift the load to the leading horse as it pulled ahead and subsequently provide the slower horse the lever advantage to get back “up to even” sooner?

Point well made Tim. It’s funny (not ha ha) that these tools and machines, many of which were designed not too many generations back, are almost like piecing together remnants of an ancient culture. It’s hard to find (if any at all) the prototypes (the things that needed “tweaking” to be most functional) most stuff we see has had enough of the “bugs” worked out so as to be “in production”. I imagine the early not so perfect stuff got recycled into something else (back into the foundry).

But it’s interesting to think of some guys out in that field, say 150 years ago, trying out a new evener setup. You can almost hear them, “Well, what if you lengthened this side here ….”

“No, no. How ’bout setting the hitch point back a bit?”

“That might work. Let’s see …” “Jebidiah, you got your calcula .. err I mean abacus handy?”

When we look back at the design and fabrication of these old tools and machines (long before there was CAD), we should really be impressed. Unfortunately, I think we too often gloss over the time, thought and real ingenuity that produced this stuff. When we discuss the mechanics/physics of this equipment, both online here and at live events like NEAPFD, it prods me to take another look at why something is designed one way over another. But just as important, I feel a deeper respect for those who worked out the details of how to design “a better mousetrap.

I’ll say that if you want to spend time pondering all sorts of HD equipment, its mechanics etc, the Abbey Collection at Tiller’s (Scott, MI) is pretty unbelievable. I had the opportunity to spend a few hours in there and that was hardly enough. It was like the Smithsonian of HD equipment and really helped to have a knowledgeable person like Dick Roosenberg guiding us. I think Tim can attest to the quality of the collection. So if you’re in the IN, OH, MI IL area, see if you can make an appointment to check it out.

[near horse]

@Scott G 23657 wrote:

….Thinking about it though, the magneto is a little close to the pawl area and that might cause me a bit of concern. Nothing like catching your saw on fire first thing in the morning… :eek:…..

Scott – we called that a poor man’s hand warmer – too bad it only works once so it had better be damn cold outside!

[near horse]

“We’d like to explore the possibility of you starting the regional chapter and having DAPNet become a subcommittee under the local chapter rather than a separate and distinct organization.”

This is the statement that gives me concern – if SFC sees this as an opportunity to expand their program into the NE while subsuming DAPnet and relegating it to a subcommittee within SFC, I’m not onboard. I think that while plenty of DAPNet folks would support the goals/views of SFC, I feel that many here are truly behind the draft animal power issue and wouldn’t be too happy to see it swallowed up. We certainly should open that up to a larger portion of the membership for discussion if that ends up being a potential reality.

As far as here and now, I’m for going with Rural Vermont and hold our cards for awhile.

[near horse]

“It is just another veil of denial over the ecological truth of human existence.”

IMHO – the ecological truth of human existence has been to manipulate the regulators of populations (human and otherwise) so as to allow unfettered growth in our numbers. While it may be humane (in some cases), it is undeniably challenging the limits of the resources on this planet. If we look at places in the natural world where we “manipulate” natural controls for other populations of species, they end up needing more and more interventions to maintain their existence, interventions that we aren’t willing to address in humans (like there’s too many of us) – elephants in Krueger National Park, a finite area (you have to cull them), deer pops in the US (cull via hunting but pops are still high due to predator removals etc …). Population regulators are ugly – predation, disease, starvation – and we can’t stand to see it.

It seems ludicrous to talk of sustainability as if it’s some final destination that we’ll reach someday and be in ecological stasis with the rest of the biological world – it can’t work without looking at limiting human population growth AND how much we draw on the finite resources here. I often think that from the first days of manipulating our environment, we set forth upon this path of unsustainablity. There were perhaps turns we could have made along the way but decisions and choices made well before us have led us to this place. Crap – now what?

“To infinity and beyond!”

[near horse]

@Scott G 23588 wrote:

…..

Even though GOL, S-212, etc mandate having the chainbrake set when you fire off from a cold start, I don’t like it. You are putting full revs on a bound clutch that is cold. Too much of that and you can watch your clutch drum turn blue…

Hate to admit it but that’s been my experience as well and thus, I don’t like starting with the brake on either. Hell – I’m thought of as the “safety weirdo” cause I don’t drop start my saw like everyone else. Guess I’m not all that safe after all.

[near horse]

@Carl Russell 23578 wrote:

…..I am at a loss really…. I don’t understand a lot of these things…..

Ha, Carl, you expressed my thoughts with regard to this evener discussion:eek:

So my question is 1) are we talking about changing the moment arm (lever arm) length by changing the point at which the singletree attaches to the evener (move it wider on the weaker horse)? OR, and this is where I’m mixed up 2) are we saying something about changing the moment arm during the pull by some means that I can’t seem to understand. I’ll leave it at that I guess.

Also, can moving the attachment point of the singletree out ward 1/2 to 1 inch really make that much diffference in shifting the load carried by each horse? I see that it changes things from 50:50 to 53:47 but is that enough to see a difference in performance? (I imagine the answer must be yes or else we wouldn’t see this type of unit).

I

[near horse]

biovol,

Adam Smith’s comment about not buying imported goods would be considered “protectionist” under today’s rules and sublect to review by the IMF. Although I lean towards his comments, everyone can’t be an exporter or else who are we exporting to? If we become too isolationist and let other countries economies sink or swim, we can end up with a lot of “swimmers” from the failed economies headed to the “lifeboats” of stable economies and jobs – now we can fight an immigration battle (sounds all too familiar, doesn’t it).

I will admit that many of the so-called “swimmers” at the border are in the “water” because we (our govt policy) sank their “lifeboats” – so we shouldn’t be surprised .

The other problem I see with the basic premise that higher fuel prices will make locally grown food more affordable lies in the likelihood that local food producers are (for the most part) not completely independent of the impact of rising fuel costs on other aspects of their lives. Any product that they purchase rather than produce will increase in cost and potentially require them to increase what they charge for their product to maintain the same standard of living or production.

Whew – I’m glad I just operate a pitchfork w/ real s*** on the other end.

[near horse]

While I haven’t gotten around to reading this book yet, I did see that it’s catching some press (see below).

http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20101222_leading-the-dirty-life

[Author]

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