[Gabe Ayers]

Well, I have been accused of trying to apply my silvicultural prescription to all forest types on here before, so keeping that cheap shot in mind I will limit my recommendations to the eastern oak hickory forest type.

We practice “restorative forestry” based upon “worst first” single tree selection with skilled directional felling and the ultimate low impact overland extraction method of modern animal powered logging.

We work in all sorts of scenarios economically. We work by the hour, by the board foot and sharecropping. It depends on what the landowner wants. I agree with and repeat my often stated approach of only working for people that appreciate the value of the services of low impact forestry. In the east the forest is being sold into smaller and smaller tract sizes over the last twenty years or so and those new smaller forest landowners have different values for their woodlots than commercial forests interest or industry. These new landowners have a greater concern to the natural appearance of there for or it’s aesthetic beauty.
Yet they recognize that the forest does have natural mortality or that trees to die and should not be wasted for immediate human use.

I am a certified forester in the state of Virginia. Yet I am also a logger, so I straddle that fence of consultant and practitioner. It is a good position in that I can define what I mean in any terms, forestry or common sense. It is also good to be able to prove the work by ground truthing in the actual practices.

If the landowner wants all the money they can get from the onset, then you can’t help them as a horselogger because of low production. So why not provide your services as superior at accomplishing their objectives and charge what you need to make a living at it. That will be an individual situation with the practitioner and their economic needs.

There have been many discussions on these issues on DAP. I am not sure how to find them but they are here somewhere. Everyone will have to adapt their methods to their community and forest type.

But the main unaccounted portion of the work is the preservation and enhancement of the value of the ecological services provided by the forested landscape. This will become a greater value in the future and the non industrial private forest landowner is the gateway to that new value set in the forestry practices of our world. Animal powered forestry is using a form of renewable energy that is superior in every regard – other than being labor intensive. It does take more human hours to do this form of forestry. But to quote an old friend, “What are people for?”

Maybe there will be further discussion of the details of how to log. There are many ways to arrange the economics and we support doing that is such a way that support the ground level worker of “restorative forestry”.
We promote bottom up change by supporting the ground level work of superior services. It does happen one landowner at a time, but every successful job is proof of the services being acceptable to other landowners.

There was a big study done by the Pinchot Institute a few years back to try to discover how landowner’s make decisions about their forest management. They spent hundreds of thousands on this study. When I first read about it I thought, Wow – they could have given us that money to train more Biological Woodmen and we would have told them the answer for free. The answer is that most landowner’s do what their neighbors do. Monkey see monkey do or if it is good enough for them it is good enough for me, or some other expression of human behavior that is poorly informed.

Another point is that in the east, 78% of all logging is a matter of a handshake between a landowner and a logger and no forester is involved. That is not the best system, but it doesn’t need to be the excuse to give up private property rights to brain washed clear cutters being pumped out of land grant Universities of Industrial Forestry.

The best way to log is the way you can make a living improving the natural world around all of us. It should be about being a steward of your surroundings or improving things from your efforts. That is exactly what Healing Harvest Forest Foundation is about.

~

[Gabe Ayers]

We have a government that is in hock over it’s head and there is no need to make new laws for anything except protection of our environment. They can’t fund these stupid make work projects that try to make themselves look like hero’s protecting the ignorant masses. There simply isn’t enough money to do every hair brained activity some politician comes up with. Law enforcement in this country is suffering the same budget restraints as every other aspect of governmental responsibility. So who is going to enforce all these new laws? Nobody, it is just chin music from politicians.

It is good to pay attention to this insanity. This is the home of the free, but only for the brave. Brave enough to stand up to tyranny in any form.

~

Jason

[Gabe Ayers]

Hey Mitch,

Simon is the real deal for sure.

This is an email I got from a friend recently, funny story by a non farmer type that was using electric fence for “home security”…. copy and paste below:

Rumor has it this is true. It was sent by a retired dentist, probably living somewhere in Kentucky… 🙂

We have the standard 6 ft. fence in the backyard, and a few months ago, I heard about burglaries increasing dramatically in the entire city. To make sure this never happened to me, I got an electric fence and ran a single wire along the top of the fence.
Actually, I got the biggest cattle charger Tractor Supply had, made for 26 miles of fence. I then used an 8 ft. long ground rod, and drove it 7.5 feet into the ground. The ground rod is the key, with the more you have in the ground, the better the fence works.
One day I’m mowing the back yard with my cheapo Wal-Mart 6 hp big wheel push mower. The hot wire is broken and laying out in the yard. I knew for a fact that I unplugged the charger. I pushed the mower around the wire and reached down to grab it, to throw it out of the way. It seems as though I hadn’t remembered to unplug it after all.
Now I’m standing there, I’ve got the running lawnmower in my right hand and the 1.7 giga-volt fence wire in the other hand. Keep in mind the charger is about the size of a marine battery and has a picture of an upside down cow on fire on the cover.
Time stood still.
The first thing I notice is my pecker trying to climb up the front side of my body. My ears curled downwards and I could feel the lawnmower ignition firing in the backside of my brain. Every time that Briggs & Stratton rolled over, I could feel the spark in my head. I was literally at one with the engine.
It seems as though the fence charger and the piece of shit lawnmower were fighting over who would control my electrical impulses.
Science says you cannot crap, pee, and vomit at the same time. I beg to differ. Not only did I do all three at once, but my bowels emptied 3 different times in less than half of a second. It was a Matrix kind of bowel movement, where time is creeping along and you’re all leaned back and BAM BAM BAM you just crap your pants 3 times. It seemed like there were minutes in between but in reality it was so close together it was like exhaust pulses from a big block Chevy turning 8 grand.
At this point I’m about 30 minutes (maybe 2 seconds) into holding onto the fence wire. My hand is wrapped around the wire palm down so I can’t let go. I grew up on a farm so I know all about electric fences… but Dad always had those piece of shit chargers made by International or whoever that were like 9 volts and just kinda tickled.
This one I could not let go of. The 8 foot long ground rod is now accepting signals from me through the permadamp Ark-La-Tex river bottom soil. At this point I’m thinking I’m going to have to just man up and take it, until the lawnmower runs out of gas. ‘Damn!,’ I think, as I remember I just filled the tank!
Now the lawnmower is starting to run rough. It has settled into a loping run pattern as if it had some kind of big lawnmower race cam in it. Covered in poop, pee, and with my vomit on my chest I think ‘Oh God please die …. Pleeeeaze die’. But nooooo, it settles into the rough lumpy cam idle nicely and remains there, like a big bore roller cam EFI motor waiting for the go command from its owner’s right foot.
So here I am in the middle of July, 104 degrees, 80% humidity, standing in my own backyard, begging God to kill me. God did not take me that day …. he left me there covered in my own fluids to writhe in the misery my own stupidity had created.
I honestly don’t know how I got loose from the wire …. I woke up laying on the ground hours later. The lawnmower was beside me, out of gas. It was later on in the day and I was sunburned.
There were two large dead grass spots where I had been standing, and then another long skinny dead spot where the wire had laid while I was on the ground still holding on to it. I assume I finally had a seizure and in the resulting thrashing had somehow let go of the wire.
Upon waking from my electrically induced sleep I realized a few things:
1 – Three of my teeth seem to have melted.
2 – I now have cramps in the bottoms of my feet and my right butt cheek (not the left, just the right).
3 – Poop, pee, and vomit when all mixed together, do not smell as bad as you might think.
4 – My left eye will not open.
5 – My right eye will not close.
6 – The lawnmower runs like a sumbitch now. Seriously! I think our little session cleared out some carbon fouling or something, because it was better than new after that.
7 – My nuts are still smaller than average yet they are almost a foot long.
8 – I can turn on the TV in the game room by farting while thinking of the number 4 (still don’t understand this???).
That day changed my life. I now have a newfound respect for things. I appreciate the little things more, and now I always triple check to make sure the fence is unplugged before I mow.
The good news, is that if a burglar does try to come over the fence, I can clearly visualize what my security system will do to him, and THAT gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling all over, which also reminds me to triple check before I mow.

~

Jason

[Gabe Ayers]

Where on this site did you find information about this little mower? Great looking light machine that would have lots of uses in this country. Now just to inspire some Amish manufacturers to produce it in the states.
~
Jason

[Gabe Ayers]

One isn’t cheating by using a fossil fueled fired machine unless they are playing by rules that define production as being animal powered only. I guess rules of nature or natural laws are the implied or applied purity guide here. I completely understand the conflict felt within this question. Having been an animal powered practitioner in the forest and fields for over forty years now I empathize with Matthews concerns.

This situation definitely provides an opportunity to differentiate the production based upon methods used in the processes from a source identity perspective.

This is what we have done with DRAFTWOOD “horse logged lumber from Restorative Forestry”. Yet we obviously use fossil fuel in the process at several points, i.e. chainsaw (ran on gasahol), loader (diesel), log lumber truck (diesel). One may use bio diesel to reduce the petroleum oil based energy consumption. Our point is that animal powered production uses less fossil fuel than conventional products and that specifically the animal powered component occurs where the environmental impact is the greatest from conventionally sourced forest products. That means from stump to landing, whereas the conventional methods require more road building and skid trail construction which are the greatest contributors to sedimentation into stream beds, alien botanical invasion, etc. So this source differentiated identify separates the products based upon the animal powered component where it is most important for the added value of environmental sensitivity.

I think the same can be said about food production that uses animal powered techniques as opposed to fossil fuel fired machines. Of course an organically grown potato is the same product in the simplest analysis
despite the use of a machine in the production, but the collateral damage or benefits may be defined in a whole way to allow the consumer to decide which technique and cultural approach they want to support. This is what we call “ecological capitalism”.

It is important to understand the beneficial values the animal powered techniques present. First, less fossil fuel is used. Second less compaction is created with animal power. Third and further are the factors of the biological powered systems that have many often under valued factors – many of which are about personal satisfaction derived from doing the very best one knows how to do, given their own understanding of all the factors.

It also is important that the value of the animal powered techniques be kept on the table and in the tool box of humanity to meet it’s needs from the natural world. Even though the DAP aspect is only a part of the process to produce goods or services, it is a valid one that won’t have a chance if folks take an animal powered purist position. There is middle ground and that may be the best most of us can do at this point. That in no way reduces the value animal power has in the whole picture of human needs from the natural world. In fact the animal powered aspect may be the most harmonizing aspect of our existence being within natural laws that we have available – beyond going back to being hunter gatherers of a primitive time.

Further differentiation is a key to marketing, but those things start from the leadership and example of others and this board and others are a great example of those considerations being inspirational and informing.
For those leaders it seems to be a very personal sense of satisfaction from actually doing the work. If we can bottle that sense of doing the right thing and label it as such, maybe it will help us get a few more pennies for our goods and services to mitigate the increased labor cost.

Great discussion Matthew, keep working your animals even if only you care about how it is done. As time goes on, others will appreciate it and pay more for it too.

~

[Gabe Ayers]

The English Suffolk colt is here on Ridgewind Farm and we are getting him settled in to know his new home. He is naturally high headed at the moment and we are a ways out of putting him in his own paddock in the center or our operation.

Maybe this afternoon he will be eating Virginia grass, for now it is just Virginia hay and mountain water. He has continued to grow and is even larger than last time we saw him. The whole effort is more about hope than skill, but it is a dream come true for us. Now we’ll just have to wait to see if he is going to mature to be fertile and a good work horse, not in that order.

Special thanks to Simon Lenihan for his able guidance in the U.K.

~

Jason Rutledge

[Gabe Ayers]

Mitch,

Sounds like a wonderful trip. Our trip was great also, but was so focused on the search for a good Suffolk colt that we went directly from farm to farm seeking out a colt of our satisfaction. We were fortunate to have a dedicated native guide in Simon Lenihan, so we worked very hard traveled over 2000 miles in country and saw every possible Suffolk colt under 24 months in the U.K.

I am writing a story about it for the pubs, so I haven’t written much about it on the boards. But reading the pleasure of your trips makes me remember the awe of just being there. Such an old country, so deep in historical factors influencing our modern world.
We did drive by the Stonehenge exit on the motorway headed toward Dorset to visit Randy and Eugenie Hiscock. It is inspirational to come back to the new world and continue our unique cultural lifestyle.

Now, of course we are unsure if the colt we bought over a month ago will actually make the flight over tonight around the volcanic ash cloud. Best laid plans of mice and men…. we’ll get him here eventually, I just want it to be swift so he will have the least stress from this move. I’ll keep the DAP group up to date on what happens with Eyke Sovereign.

Meanwhile still collecting our senior sire for A.I. Got to run see the “good time” doc again this morning….

~

Jason

[Gabe Ayers]

Black eyed peas are cheap mid season legumes. Mixed with buckwheat and millet will make some organic matter content and soil improvement in a single season. Disk it down early and put winter rye and Austrian field peas behind that.

~

[Gabe Ayers]

You could use a White Horse hydraulic accumulator forecart to run the disk and they have a pto driven off the other wheel. Maybe?

[Gabe Ayers]

We’re working in a red oak piece that has some cherry too. It has pretty much been destroyed by forty years of cattle running in it. The mortality or number of dead trees were sad. Lots of hardwood firewood for training the young horses. We will fence it off from livestock and hope for some good regeneration in the future.

These attached photos show what we did last week. We saw some of it and sell some of it.

Beautiful working space Carl has there too.

~

[Gabe Ayers]

He earned the name Farmer Brown and is a committed to this culture as much as anyone I know. I recommend anything he has to offer educational or equipment wise. You get what you pay for with this guy. His success is not doubt attributable/relative to his wonderful wife and partner Linda.

~

[Gabe Ayers]

Thanks Tim, Glad you were able to catch it, the next one is good too, has the oxen and mules in it.

Here is the latest info from the Rural Heritage Face Book page:

Rural Heritage Magazine This week on RFDTV: 11:00 PM CDT Rural Heritage “Environmental Forestry: Part 2.” Horselogger Jason Rutledge and crew show how to fell a tree safely. 1:00 PM premepted by auction.

Not sure exactly which day, but maybe Friday again… it would seem that information would be posted also, but we are lucky to have the air time at any rate so I mustn’t complain to loudly…

~

[Gabe Ayers]

Yes, you may buy a DVD called “Restorative Forestry Techniques” that has all three segments on it, from http://www.ruralheritage.com

I agree, satellite TV is not worth having for a couple of channels and that is about all that’s on it worth watching…imo

Thanks for asking Kevin.

~

[Gabe Ayers]

Hey Maxwell,

Was your A.I. a Suffolk?

Twining is a problem for sure, but I wasn’t aware that the A.I. was more likely to make twins. Is it the shot that does it more than a natural cover?
I think all these mares will be checked at 17 days and hopefully they can pinch any twins.

We are hopeful to get a few mares in foal with this technique.

If there is room I am going to try to attach a photo of the event. It’s not the best one, I am saving that for an article. The old horse learns fast.
He is 17 now.

Thanks for the post. Off to the woods for a lovely spring afternoon in Appalachia!

The staff has bought new Bull Riding helmets, so I am glad to have the photos of the vet wearing the football helmet. Both these staff members had been injured in the past also.

My new job title is Cheerleader! Go Hokies!

~

Jason

`

[Gabe Ayers]

plant corn when the white oak leaves are the size of a gray squirrels ears.

Or if you are going organic bury a thermometer at seed depth and plant when soil temperature is 57+

Neither method assures that a killing frost won’t get it given the wild extreme swings weather has taken lately. They are calling for frost and freeze here for the next two days. Glad I don’t have anything above ground yet.

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