Skidding wood with Reno

After talking with John and Carolyn Plowden at the Field days last week, I agreed to sign up for the ‘Low Impact Forestry’ course in Unity, Maine put on by MOFGA (Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association) next month. In the wake of any event like the field days, its easy to get excited about the next horse drawn adventure and it didn’t take much to get me registered and to mail my check, lol. They encouraged me to bring a horse as well.

Well, about halfway into the week I wondered what the hell had I gotten myself into….I didn’t even know if Reno had skid wood before. I’m sure if he had worked in the woods it was part of a team….so I thought I better get him out and see where our holes are before attending the course.

Reno, as many of you are aware, is recovering from an injury. When he is relaxed and confident he is sound. When he is nervous or unconfident, he limps. Makes it really easy to judge his state of mind….

So today I harnessed him up and assumed he knew nothing about skidding wood. We started simply ground driving, making sure he was responding well to rein cues as well as verbal cues. Then I hooked the single tree. I was alittle surprised to see he was bothered by the noise of the single tree, especially on gravel. We spend a good 30 minutes pulling that singletree around on the grass then onto the gravel until he was not reacting to the change in sound and vibration. Then I hooked on the chain and went through the whole deal again, though it took less time.

I chose a big tree as our first skid. It was about a 1/4 mile skid, all up hill and the heaviest, but as dead fall goes not a really heavy load for such a big horse. I figured the uphill skid as well as the load would help me if he got alittle nervous (input on this welcome). He was awesome. As soon as he felt the load he was all business…like he finally understood what was going on. I love a horse that loves a job! We made several skids this afternoon. My favorite was a pretty big log that was wedged in an old stonewall. He had to really push hard to get it free and we were both smiling when it came loose.

I wish I had photos, like Big John, but I was alone today.