[Rick Alger]

Things are very slow here in Northern NH.

[Rick Alger]

For the summer I have one of those cots-enclosed-by-a-tent that Cabela’s sells. I set up inside the stock trailer with a Coleman stove and gas light. I use a brook to keep food and drink cool. For the fall and winter I either borrow a camper or cadge a cabin. For the last three winters I’ve been able to stay at a logging camp that the mechanized guys don’t use any more. Gas lights and refrigerator, and battery powered radio – almost like home.

A friend of mine with a mechanized operation has a set up like you described. It’s a 30 foot box trailer. He’s got a workshop, a wood stove you can cook on, a bunk, and a dining room table.

[Rick Alger]

I make rough hovels with tarps and any wood that’s handy. It takes less than half a day. I spike a frame to standing trees and nail the tarp down with button caps. I bed with straw. For turnout, if there is any open land, I use portable electric fence. During the moose rut, I string some rope around the outer limits of the hovel.

[Rick Alger]

The roads here are still posted here, so nobody’s cutting. I’m surprised you can move jack pine. Is it going for Kraft?

[Rick Alger]

Matthew,

I am a full-time commercial horselogger, and I share your frustration. It is now a struggle to make ends meet in a business I have been conducting for many years.

My advice is to review some of the discussions on this board about value adding and building return business. This is the direction I am trying to take. Extracting timber at commercial rates will no longer pay the bills.

More advice. Voluntary poverty is overrated. Start small with a single horse, a whiffle tree and a chain. Forget about arches, horse trailers and trucks, you can rent or borrow them when needed until you are making money.

Do good work. Build your client base first.

Best of luck,

Rick

[Rick Alger]

Joshua and Jason,

If you work something out, please let me know. I am also interested in a smaller Suffolk, (15-16 hands, 1600#) and I could possibly share transportation costs.

[Rick Alger]

Thanks, Donn.

[Rick Alger]

Thank you.

[Rick Alger]

Carl,

Thanks, That’s useful information.

Anyone else have any figures or thoughts?

[Rick Alger]

George,

I’m not Carl, but I’ll try to answer your questions. Chopping -yes. Twitching -yes. Heading – pre-bunching at skid trail heads.

Scott,

Thanks for the info. The chainsaw cost surprised me.

All,

I played around with Scott’s formulas to figure the cost of the Payeur forwarder. I had to make a lot of assumptions, and the figure I got is in no way truly accurate. Just something to further discussion.

Figuring 1000 productive hours per year over five years with 50% salvage value, paying North Country wages to the operator ( $12.50/hr plus $7.50 for wc fica etc), paying $ 4.00/hr for the team and $4.50/hr to own and run the machine, the Hourly cost comes out to $28.50 give or take.

If I remember correctly a discussion with Mike Miller a while back, this machine is capable of averaging around 500 feet an hour, so the guestimated cost to forward a thousand feet is $57.00.

That figure is about half way between what Carl is paying on a real job and what Mitch is willing to pay on our next one.

Any thoughts?

[Rick Alger]

Yes. My point exactly.

Had a good discussion recently with John Plowden about forwarders. He participates in LIF and has used forwarders. We got to talking about a concept that Simon raised a while back of a forwarder serving multiple crews.

Because of the distances between horseloggers today, I threw in the idea of trucking by the forwarder guy as well. Automatic “back haul” and save on loading time/yard space.

I agree with Carl that in my example you could probably double production, and I agree with Mitch that $40/mbf is the low end of a reasonable ballpark figure. $80/mbf is way too high for my situation.

Dreaming out loud, if four jobs were involved for the logging season, and the trails would be kept open in the winter, I’m thinking a trucking/forwarder guy could cycle weekly between four jobs and move a respectable amount of wood at a reasonable cost – especially if all four were relatively close.

Anyway thanks for the input. I’ve got to do something, and I would be all for a collaborative effort.

[Rick Alger]

Hey Mitch,
Thanks for the reply. I forget to include stumpage, but that is fixed now.

We can’t dicker yet because I’m hoping for other replies. My guess is you’ve done a little skinning in your time!

Take care.

[Rick Alger]

Scott, Carl,

Thanks.

[Rick Alger]

Scott,

I haven’t had any real contact with Canadians, but I know there are some working horses in the “bush.”

I did talk with a guy from northern Maine a couple days ago who was trying to figure out how to park his machines and get back into horse logging.

What we seem to have in common in this region is generally a low value forest resource owned by absentee stockholders who expect quarterly profits.

I’ve heard a timber company forester say that he has been told by corporate headquarters to manage the resource for an 8% return! (I think this dynamic is what Carl was talking about a while back)

So we have got to generate our income from the short term value of the wood that is extracted – or else find other complementary funding sources.

Collaboration, shared technology, specific silvicultural applications like your aspen project, these are things I’d like to discuss within the region.

[Rick Alger]

Hey Jim,

We are the same decrepid age. I used to do eighty trees a day, now I do eight.

Hey All,

One thought about what direction to take might be localized groups affiliated with the larger group but based on forest type and regional markets.

The group that interests me would be – spruce/fir forest type, Northern New England/southern Quebec region.

[Author]

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