[Gabe Ayers]

Depends on where you are with the DOT. Out near the interstate I have been weighed and inspected once in 35 years or so. We live in a pretty isolated community and I don’t get out near the big road much any more.

I like it that way. Lately we have been custom harvesting and processing on site for landowner builder projects, so we get paid by the m and hire the processing, tag on handling and management cost and don’t run our truck anywhere but local. There are many advantages to community based forestry and this is just one of them….

Another is the tag on the front of that truck – Farm Use….not state tags, just farm and in this case since we log with horses, this is farm use. This may be only applicable in Virginia. So our only cost of the log truck is upkeep and maintenance (done locally by the fellows we bought it from), taxes for personal property and liability insurance. Simple deal.

We have turned around our markets from being 75% sold to the mill and 25% value added to the other way around in last two years. It is a better way than competing with the machines, but I get tired of arguing this point with some on the open forum at DAP. It is more rewarding to just share with the ones that are really logging with their animals – today.

[Gabe Ayers]

Down south there is no logging hauling available of any kind, except maybe another small logger that is willing to help. So most of us have our own trucks and loaders.

Our rig is smaller than some and is a flat bed dump that can serve many other useful purposes, like hauling gravel/rock, sawdust, slabs, firewood, logs, lumber, beams, tractor, skid steer, on and on…Our loader is an antique JD that runs on the motor of the truck but we are hoping to upgrade that this year to be on a diesel truck instead of the current gas engine. I have been dealing with the same family garage locally for thirty years. We have about $3500 in this truck and about the same in the loader.

A self loader truck is seen as to expensive to run around empty here and I don’t know of about three of them in a hundred mile radius. When we were in the NE we saw that many in every village. Big difference in culture regionally.

Photo of our fancy Appalachian logging equipment….in photo, Jagger Rutledge and Donn Hewes

~

[Gabe Ayers]

Can you guys grow crimson clover up there? Or how about black eyed peas or cheap soybeans? Maybe put some fast legumes in the restoration process?

~

[Gabe Ayers]

I have a private message from a spammer. It actually threatens to send abusive mail to my ISP if I don’t follow their thread…

Check it out, I will delete it later..

Jason

[Gabe Ayers]

I wonder if you could char the bottom portion of those softwood fence post and get them to last longer? The old timers down here burnt the portion that was in the topsoil level and the locust post would last a lifetime. It’s allot of hand labor, but certainly makes locust last longer. Give you something to do with slash right on site maybe.

Call’em DRAFTWOOD Charpost! Naturally preservation enhanced!

I don’t know maybe insects get it above the ground? Maybe put a big vat on site and cook em in some boric acid water, somehow using the same fire to do it all? All part of a fire risk reduction program? I don’t know just thinking out loud here.

If we can figure out how to make the junk be something more than pulpwood or chips we could improve allot of woods.

The pressure treated stuff coming out of the southeast is mostly low grade Va. pine. The stuff is probably toxic and will end up in our water eventually. People don’t like them, they just don’t have other options.

Weather whine – Our snow is still here, when it blows away and piles up somewhere else, it exposes about four inches of ice with footprints from months ago. Winter on the high Blue Ridge is brutal. We can travel about ten miles away eastward and there is bare ground.

Some guys are still working though it down here and getting out a couple of loads a week. Just depends on where you are at. We just can’t get off the place at the moment.

I loved Carl’s line “There are ways to mimic the best of natural processes.”
and Joel’s “there goes the neighborhood”.

Hope everyone is doing well out there.

~

[Gabe Ayers]

Last year we did a similar transition on some low grade regenerating forests back to grassland/pasture. We used a bull hog, one of those grinder wheels on the front of a skid steer. Really grinds stuff up pretty good including grinding softwood stumps down to ground level.

The same issue of high carbon presence reducing nitrogen availability came up. We used a combo of hand labor to pile really course debris and burn piles all over the field which created some fertility increase from the ash, but the surface was pretty much covered with several inches of chips and woody debris. In this situation there wasn’t an option of running hogs or livestock on it immediately so we came up with a botanical response.

We planted the entire site with yellow blossom sweet clover. This is the number one nitrogen fixer and number one nectar honey producer. This stuff did amazing. He grew right up through the debris and covered the ground with a lush green carpet. In this particular situation the carpet was destroyed when the air exchange system of a thermal heating system was installed right in the middle or throughout the field we just created. The machinery guys were very sensitive about putting the soil profile back in place after burying the air lines and the top soil went back on top. Then we reseeded it again with YBSC and it will be interesting to see what it looks like if we ever see spring again.

The YBSC is a biennial and won’t last as a permanent legume but it is a cheap vigorous start to conversion back to grassland from low grade forested conditions. I have planted many bushel of YBSC seed on this place over the years as it was an entirely clear cut when I bought it in 83.
It is amazing stuff and will grow in very poor soil and doesn’t mind the nitrogen tie up from the high carbon load.

Another issue is the dragging of the ground to get it level. A problem there is the little doddles or stuff that gets rolled together to make a spun clump of woody debris that is hard to get to rot because it is concentrated and sets above the ground surface. We got around it on the setting planting by discing it first to incorporate it with the soil a bit before seeding over it.

Bringing the livestock into the picture may change all that. Just figured I’d brag on YBSC a bit since it definitely will grow in the debris better than anything else I know of. Always inoculate the legumes or buy pre inoculated seed.

There is an old saying about tearing something up like a new ground…it is work, but just imagine how much more work it was historically when the botanical over burden was larger and the mechanics were entirely animal powered, including human power….

I think a long term view should include concerns over erosion. Keep what topsoil you have there – there.

~

[Gabe Ayers]

It sounds like a thousand mile long freight train driving by in between the house and barn. The wind is brutal, relentless. Snow drifts back everywhere again, especially the driveway into the place – deeper than ever. Drifts over my head in many places.

I’m gonna stop complaining, it seems the more I complain, the worse it gets.

Still feeding with the team every day. Have lots of protected areas out of the wind and where the hay stay where you throw it at least long enough for the horses to eat it.

~

[Gabe Ayers]

Yep, I can empathize, we have two days skidding (cherry, red oak, locust) laying under two feet of baby glacial kind of snow ice, stratified miserable long laying winter precipitation #%*+… been there since well before Christmas.

Snow is quickly becoming a new four letter word in the higher elevation Appalachians.

Fortunately we have consulting work to do in the Piedmont and that will be fun and at least keep the bills paid for now.

An intriguing upcoming weekend consult is on the Red Hill Plantation, Patrick Henry’s homeplace. It should be very interesting. It is a national memorial and historic site. They supposedly have hundreds of acres of piedmont oak hickory yellow pine forest type. Most is 125 year age range. I will let DAP know what comes of it.

Hope the sap is running good for you all?

I’d hate to have to get around in our woods right now to collect it. The debris load from the three ice storms we have had among this worse winter in my life make walking around on anything other than snowshoes is dangerous.

Yall hang on out there. Just do what you can – safely.

~

[Gabe Ayers]

JimB,

Look up the East Tennessee Draft Horse and Mule Association. They have a very active membership that is spread out over the eastern half of the state.

~

[Gabe Ayers]

Well the new bracket format certainly kept us glued to the tube for the fast paced elimination style contest.

But we also experienced one of the most negative things in my adult life of paying for TV. We had recently switched satellite providers because Directv had dropped the Versus channel in a squabble over money (big surprise), so we switched to the other sky tv providers – Dish network. There are really only three channels I am willing to pay for as entertainment and education. They are Versus for PBR, RFD-TV for cultural programing such as animal powered stuff through the Rural Heritage show and the weather channel for obvious reasons being a farmer and person that works outdoors.

Here is the shocking story of what happened.

So in the beginning of the PBR biggest event in history that was unfolding rapidly in the bracket format, after 30 minutes of the three hours show, the screen goes blue and a note comes up that says your account will have to be upgraded to continue receiving this channel. In the middle of the one of the only shows that I bought the service to watch. The bill was paid up to date and there was not reason other than a manipulated effort targeted at viewers who choose the package just to watch this channel.

I was livid, angry beyond anything I could have thought of to piss me off. Talk about having you over a barrel, this was crazy. So on the phone after wadding through the robot answering system I finally get a human being on the phone and it was all I could do to not ask where he was physically and go hunt them down and let them know how a manipulated consumer feels. But seconds were ticking away and I was missing the very event that they knew I subscribed to watch. So I had no choice but to upgrade my package to see the rest of the event, right in the middle of the event. When I railed to the human at Dish about how mean this timing was the guy said it was just a random thing done by the computer.
How stupid do they think consumers are….there was nothing random about this at all, in fact it was the most strategic precise targeting I have ever seen. So despite how angry I was at this manipulation I folded and paid the extra.

Believe me I am researching any way to acquire this signal from other sources. I was happy with the Directv but them dropping a channel from my agreed package and still charging the same seemed unfair and reason enough to switch providers, and now this.

So we are either going to have adjust our appetite for this form of entertainment or find another provider. I don’t think either will be easy and the ladder probably impossible. It makes a person hate capitalism, profiteering and just generally being manipulated.

Meanwhile (Valdiron Oliverita) a Brazilian won the Iron Cowboy event and the event was a success. I just don’t think the sport will be advanced when the customers are manipulated in this fashion. We may just quit watching it altogether and go back to “free” tv, which has no more commercials than satellite tv, we just don’t have to pay to get manipulated in that setting….

So you may have missed some good bull riding, but at least you didn’t suffer the jerking around we did in the middle of the event.

~

not a HHFF post, just a mad farmer sharing the misery of choosing to be an entertainment consumer in the modern world…

[Gabe Ayers]

How climate change may be effecting tree growth.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/2/20/839067/-Treehugger-Science

~

[Gabe Ayers]

I saw the first GD pto cart by I and J Mfg. at HPD. I never saw it operate until SDAD.

I was very impressed with what two medium sized mules were able to do with over the waist high Johnson Grass. It was so cool to hear the whirring of the mower and no other noise and see the grass flattened after a pass. I think the folks are continuing to refine this machine and it seem to work very well in the current version. They also have a heavy duty GD cart that runs a square baler and a haybine with bigger hitches.

I and J Mfg. LLC
5203 Amish Road
Gap, Pa. 17527
717-442-9451

~

[Gabe Ayers]

Well I am so relieved to know that I am not the only PBR fanatic on DAP. Ok you didn’t admit you were a fanatic and I just did. I’ve been watching it and paying the same expensive fees you mentioned for years, just to see the boys ride bulls. It is expensive too, it is my one luxury to have that sport to watch for one simple reason. It is entertainment pure and simple. When I am watching bull riding I escape the rest of the world for about two hours at a time weekly, in season.

That is the whole point – to enjoy something that is distant and captivating just to “take a trip and not leave the farm” transcendental sort of experience. I know I could be doing yoga and meditating, been there, still do that, in a practical sort of way. Like when Carl describes the pleasure of contemplating moving a big log with his animals in an adverse situation. To envision the steps required and orchestrate the event in harmony with your animals in the natural world is a form of meditation to some. To flesh your will in the will of animals is a super rewarding ingredient in the soup of success when logging with animals. I think that experience is a mutually rewarding aspect of this animal powered life we share here.

But to simply watch these brave young men get on those super athletic bulls for a long eight seconds of pure animal powered explosion is pretty captivating and entertaining indeed. Since my family has been a part of this sport by knowing young men that are making their way up the ladder of this rapidly growing sport and having friends that raise and train the bulls we are quite immersed in this culture too. It is pure entertainment only. I have no immediate kin riding bulls thankfully and I don’t plan on putting up with the dangerous cows that raise these bulls or keeping the bulls themselves, I am content to be a spectator, a truly entertained one.

Now what is going on can be found at http://www.pbr.com. If you have high speed you may watch some of the highlights there and keep up with the current rankings, injury list and stories about stock contractors and bull of the year race.

The N.C. guy J.B. Mauney is back on top of the rankings at the moment. This event today in Dallas is the largest one time payment ever (250k) and it should be real interesting to see the same guys ride 4 bulls in one day, maybe five if the winner comes from the back of the pack.

On the TV scene, it is interesting that Directv just dropped Versus about three months ago and we switched to Dish to pick the channel back up and now Dish is thinking of dropping RFD-TV so these networks or satellite providers are constantly jockeying for more profit and the channels are in the same game. It stinks that they can change the channels they carry on the drop of a hat and you are supposed to stay
a customer although just like you I only have the service for these two channels and feel abused by their quick changes that are about more money, when we already are paying plenty…. So use the net to find some of the action. We have high speed connection and have watched one event over the net, but it is not the same quality for sure. The short
snippets are good on the pbr website though.

Enough rambling from a bull riding fan, glad I’m not alone though….

~not a HHFF post, ignore the signature, this is just a personal indulgence…captivated couch time…

Jason

[Gabe Ayers]

I prefer a slow casual walk back into the woods too. When they are really working that becomes a rest period, where the slow patient return is at a pace that allows them to recover from the effort of coming out with a good load. When you are really working them that seems a natural way of going that they adapt in response to the situation and energy needed for the loaded task.

All horses are fresh when the first few steps start, particularly if they are not worked regularly at the same task and routine. A stout conditioned pair may be fresh in a different way than a less experienced and less worked pair who are not sure what is going to happen next. There is a subtle difference between horses that are just game and high headed and a team that feels good to come out of the barn and move out a bit.

The liking to see them trot reminds me of a fellow many years ago that said the same thing to me once while we were very young and I was actually making crops with my horses and he was playing with his.

Eventually the trotting horses became running horses and he lost them a couple of times to runaways and he gave up and gave the horses away. He was a rich fellow that was just a hobbyist at best and he didn’t stick with working horses very long. Having been at this now for 40 years or so I have certainly seen allot of people come to this culture and the highest percentage actually don’t stay. It is a fad for them and they don’t actually work them very much in the woods or on the farm.

I don’t think our horseman here (George) fits that description, and I am not picking at him, in fact I am glad he is telling of his experiences. But I would suggest that the teamster has a role of not only giving guidance to where the horses actually go but how fast or at what pace they get there.

There is such a marked difference between horses that go to work everyday for the economic gain that results from their work and horses that just work occasionally for the enjoyment of working them. The two things are often one, but the difference of choosing animals as the power source, that are actually doing the work as a way of making a living adds a quality of function that tempers every aspect of the horse and horseman relationship.

Keep working them George, glad you are enjoying it. Sounds like your horses like working too.

~

[Gabe Ayers]

This was sent to me by a Blonde, so I feel politically correct in sharing it or you can just imagine this happened in Virginia last week….

It was snowing heavily and blowing to the point that visibility was
almost zero when the little Blonde got off work. She made her way to her car and wondered how she was going to make it home.
She sat in her car while it warmed up and thought about her situation. She finally remembered her daddy’s advice that if she got caught in a blizzard she should wait for a snow plow to come by and follow it. That way she would not get stuck in a snow drift.
This made her feel much better and sure enough in a little while a snow plow went by and she started to follow it.
As she followed the snow plow she was feeling very smug
as they continued and she was not having any problem with the blizzard conditions.
After an hour had passed, she was somewhat surprised when the snowplow stopped and the driver got out and came back to her car and signaled for her to roll down her window.
The snow plow driver wanted to know if she was all right as she had been following him for a long time.
She said that she was fine and told him of her daddy’s advice to follow a snow plow when caught in a blizzard.
The driver replied that it was ok with him and she could continue if she wanted, but he was done with the Wal-Mart parking lot and was going over to Sears next.

[Author]

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