[Gabe Ayers]

Hey Dennis Plowboy,

This is interesting. I agree with Carl, TNC is usually good at the green spin, as the largest environmental group in the world (read also richest), they have an opportunity to do some things differently and we have encouraged them over the years as a consulting forester and collaborator on several of their strategies.

They had an idea several years ago to create what was called a “Sustainable Forestry Bank”. This idea was for a landowner to deed the forest management rights under a conservation easement to TNC and they would in turn manage the forest in a sustainable way and pay a yearly dividend to the landowner. This is a complex proposal, but definitely has merit. There are many challenges to this approach and we worked together to refine the proposal.

As any experienced forest manager knows, there are all sorts of conditions throughout forested conditions everywhere, so how you pay a dividend could be all over the scale. The idea hasn’t ripened to date, to my knowledge. When it was first presented in the Appalachian region it included the implication that it would be “horse logging”, which has a warm fuzzy image to most people. I had been getting some publicity for my logging in the National Forest at the time and it was a convenient wagon to jump on for gaining public support.

The problems started when they hired a rather conventional forester that had never seen modern animal powered forestry and doubted the abilities of this culture and technique. He baited people in with horse logging and then tried to talk them into “small machines” to do the work and the general reaction was rejection. When they abandoned the overall bottom up change approach promoted by HHFF we withdrew and continued our work in our own communities and I am not aware of the status of that approach is today.

I will refer this information to Jimmy Brown, Chad Vogel and Troy Firth. Each has connections in the Adirondacks and may be interested in this idea.

Thanks for staying in touch with this board Plowboy.

More later,

[Gabe Ayers]

Anthony,

Wow – you are a lucky fellow to have such master’s offer to help you. Any cost
to you will be the best investment in your own education you could possibly make. Go for it.

Most areas of the country don’t have such resource individuals to go to…

Congrats on finding DAP to network through…

Regards,

[Gabe Ayers]

Mark,

We have a DVD entitled the “Chronicles of the Biological Woodsmen” that will be donated to the NEAPFD for a raffle fundraiser….I think…if Carl wants it and will send me his address….

It can be bought from us for $25.00 or is given as a gift to donors of $250.00
to the Healing Harvest Forest Foundation.

It also will be shown on a film night during the NEAPFD event, I think….

Send a $25.00 Check or postal money order to:

Jason Rutledge
Healing Harvest Forest Foundation
8014 Bear Ridge Rd. SE
Copper Hill, Va. 24079

I also recommend any of Farmer Jimmy Brown’s Tapes and DVD’s, go to Farmer Browns Plow Shop and check them out.

Rural Heritage and Mischka Publishing have lots of videos and DVD’s also

Good luck getting the government to positively see a method that doesn’t use fossil fuel and provides sustainable jobs for community members. They usually don’t –

“get it”.

Animal power is often dismissed as being anachronistic, (backward in time), labor intensive and low production. They are simply not accounting for all the cost of doing things conventionally.

Good idea, we hope you the best.

Regards,

[Gabe Ayers]

Matt,

I have known Birky for years. I wrote a response to this yesterday and went to a web site link to be sure it worked and lost my reply to you in the process. I didn’t know that I could right click the mouse and it would give me the “back” option. I ain’t as well broke as my horses.

So I visited Jim’s site and dropped him an email and he wrote back which I quote below:

“I remember our meeting in GA many years ago – have held a great respect for
you and your work since.
It has been a few years since working with our local Amish farmers and their
Belgian Horses, but I talk about them all the time. All forest managers
should have horse logging in their toolbox!”

I recall that he was working with animal powered logging in the past but it seems he may not be doing it personally now.

Value adding the products of restorative forestry is about the only way one can squeeze enough money out of it to make a living doing it. We have been doing this for years with every end user customer we could find. This approach gives some lead time for delivery of the product in a “just in time” style. In our case it is just in time for the ecosystem to survive….

The best thing about this approach for us is that we get a deposit up front that helps us pay all the folks involved along the process to get the work done and leaves the profit for the end. This means we only have to invest our labor, since most people doing this work in Appalachia don’t have capital or investment cash. Our approach develops social capital, which to us means making “People worth money”.

So there is a combination of efforts required to generate income from the practice of sustainable forestry. Combinations will be regionally appropriate to what one can do in their area and with their resources and customers.

Thanks for this post. We can all learn from each other. I particularly like
Birky’s editorials about the green movement and industry mostly being self serving. We call the greenies that run the environmental groups “envirocrats”
because they really don’t want to support animal power or bottom up change, example – Vermont Family Forest doesn’t support animal powered forestry.
And of course industry just wants to grind the source in to dust….while they
confuse the consumers with green wash…. example – SFI is a green wash.

So we have to do it our selves and educate the public as best as we can.
It is one “worst first” tree at a time and one wise landowner at a time.

http://www.draftwood.com

[Gabe Ayers]

Neal,

The first Southern Horse Progress Days will be in the fall of 2009, but we have not decided where. It seems to be some regional interest throughout the south and possibly will be best served by several different events in different locations just to give more people a chance to attend.

We have had about 30 serious responses to the survey at:
http://www.southernhorseprogressdays.com

We are working on a location and an organizing body to put together the first event.

It is not an easy thing to do the first time, but what Carl and Lisa have done with NEAPFD is an inspiration to all of us and we look forward to having the first such event in the southeastern U.S.

Stay tuned, if you know anyone in the south or anyone that would like to participate in any way – as a vendor, or attendee please let them know about the web site so they can get on the mailing list.

Thanks to everyone for their interest and support.

[Gabe Ayers]

Rod,

We experience that tongue weight causes a lot of head rubbing on each other and the breast yoke. So keeping the tongue weight off their necks by using the d-ring harness helps. Sometimes habits are developed and it takes time to break those habits and create a different behavior from horses. Rubbing and fidgeting is a worry that does cause problems with the lines getting caught up and the a potential loss of control of your animals.

[Gabe Ayers]

Once when being photographed by a nationally known horseman and photographer, (maybe photographer first horseman second in notoriety) he commented that he could not show or sell a video we had produced because it showed the unsafe practice of laying the lines down. Then he actually came to the woods and saw us working our horses and made the comment that “your horses are oblivious to everything”. And the video went on to be acclaimed as one of the best horselogging videos every produced. It was called “An Introduction to Modern Horselogging, Appalachian Style”, first released in 94.

Well believe me those horses weren’t born that way, they were trained to be that way over a considerable period of time, say six months at least in the woods.

We basically have some principles that we apply to using the horses that may help anyone.

First, is expressed by the euphemism of: “If they don’t have a park, then none of the other gears count”. Standing still or doing nothing is the most important command and dependable behavior or response for any horse or team when asked to whoa and stand still.

When we teach our courses we take lead lines and write out the letters P.,A., R., K., on the ground and ask the students what it spells. They say “Park” and we say that is what the lead lines are for, if you want them to stay where you put them then tie them up and you can’t do that unless you have a halter on during working times. Now an interesting aside is that the same photographer mentioned above refused to photograph our horses (even when working) with a halter on.

So yes we tie them up frequently in the woods, usually as high as the eye and to trees that are apart and we can get them to not get tangled lines or get untied while waiting for our next need for them to work.

But the important thing here is to explain how we get them to the point of standing in a normal working situation. Normal meaning we are alone in the woods and have to depend on their standing while we hook logs, open gates, load trucks, roll logs around, fall timber, clear skid trails and such.

How we get them to that point is a matter of positive reinforcement of their behavior of stopping and standing still. It has been said that “the greatest reward for any beast of burden is cessation of demand”. The important ingredient in that statement is that you have to be working them first. Really working them, not pulling an empty wagon around a ring or down a road, but asking them to move against a reasonable resistance or load. I’m not taking anything away from the hitch work Neil does, and I’ll bet you he has many miles on those black horses before taking them into the public and moving over many miles is resistance to movement by distance alone. When you are working them hard enough whoa can be a reward, which is positive reinforcement of the behavior or standing still. The compounding of this training is to double the positive reinforcement by stopping them when they are doing everything exactly right. This means perfect contact and tension on the lines and bits, evenly pulling, relaxed and comfortable and everything is going just right…..that is when you stop and rest them. That is a very hard thing for beginners to get. When every thing is going just right it is a natural tendency to want to go on and on. So try to master that awareness of positive reinforcement by using whoa as a reward with the reward being cessation of demand or rest.

Then gradually introduce them to more events, stimulus and actions that occur around them daily in the work situations and let them learn that it means nothing to their prey animal mind and that they have no reason to fear anything or anything you are doing.

As I have said in a previous post this should or could all start on the ground when they are foals. Imprint training of cradling a foal restraining it’s movement or actually guiding it to the tit if it is standing for the first time and then when it gets to where you want it or relaxes into accepting your restraint, whisper whoa whoa whoa in their ear and they remember it for a lifetime….Then just keep that mindset of whoa being a matter of stand still on the lead line or I will fuss with you until you do and when they do, relax the contact and stand quietly with them. You are convincing them that as long as you are relaxed they can be relaxed. They can only see you as another horse and you want to be the boss horse or dominant mare in a herd setting and they will take their cues from you, particularly when your signals are clear.

We are all busy right now, it is second cutting hay time here. We actually are shooting film in the woods for the series on RFD-TV and Rural Heritage show on that channel. We happen to be working on a site that has lots of Advanced Timber Stand Improvement that the landowner is willing and able to pay for so we actually have a situation of being paid fairly to improve a forest for the landowner’s aesthetic values first and timber harvesting as an incidental aspect, not the primary objective.

I hope this helps and is clear. It all takes lots of time in harness – working. We do have halters and lead lines on our horses at all times, because no matter how broke or trained they are, horses will wander off if left to stand to long…. they will browse in the woods and look for something to eat in a field, even if it means going to the edge where they can reach leaves when they are checked up to not be able to put their heads to the ground. And as everyone that has worked them for any time knows, they can find a bugger in the bushes when we don’t even see one… they are prey animals and fear equals flight and that instinctual behavior has served to keep them alive during their evolution and it is not going away totally regardless of training and centuries of domestication or attempted domestication. So accept it, embrace it actually and tie them up if there is any question about knowing they will stay where you put them.

Keep working, ere on the side of caution and remember the best color on any
working horse is sweat…..

Regards,

[Gabe Ayers]

Earlier I had mentioned that we would have better graphics of our simple Charlie Fisher style log arch. This device can be used single or team or multiple hitch.

The new improved 3 – D graphics can be found at:

http://www.healingharvestforestfoundation.org/docs/Log_Arch_Plans.pdf

Thanks DAP folks.

Also wanted to mention that our first installment in a series of segments about HHFF will air on RFD-TV Rural Heritage show starting on the 15th of September.
Hope you all enjoy it and stay tuned to upcoming shows that will have more actual techniques of doing this work safely and efficiently.

We want to thank Joe Mischka at Rural Heritage, Bailey’s Forestry Supply and Pennfield Feeds for their support and sponsorship.

Regards,

[Gabe Ayers]

Wow – Well if the weather keeps changing more of this country is going to be a desert so maybe somebody should bring some camels to the southwest… and evolve that culture….for all of us…

I think I’ll stick with the horses for now…
I know an elephant would freeze here in the winter and my fence probably wouldn’t hold camels…

[Gabe Ayers]

It has been said that the greatest reward for any beast of burden is cessation of demand – Whoa.

So when you really work them, they love to stop and when they are well worked and then are really tired they don’t mind standing still…..

If they are exhausted and you keep asking them then you will teach them to balk just like Neil says. If they start to balk, give them a supplemental signal of some kind – no more than necessary to encourage movement in response to your normal signals and then work a little bit more and quit. Quit on a positive successful exchange and note.

Watching their respiration rate when you stop and noticing how quickly they recover or take that sigh and then start to breath at a little slower rate is important. The harder you work them against a great resistance to their movement the quicker they will tire. The hotter the weather the quicker they will tire. The softer or out of shape your horses are the quicker they will tire.

Your goal is to make them think they can do anything you ask…and the measure of what they can do without injury is a measure of your horsemanship. It is a matter of making them brave and strong….and it takes time and patience multiplied by what kind of horses (character, confirmation, conditioning) you actually have. Most of them can and will work a man to death when kept in good care and conditioning.

Contact, command and release simultaneously to start, pull back slightly and voice whoa simultaneously to stop, then release, give them their head and freedom to stand, just don’t throw the lines away, stay in touch. You will have to work a long time to trust them to stand pointed back to the barn, or the trailer at a show, or the landing in the woods…

The release to start is a reward of the freedom of movement, which for any prey animal is a safer feeling than a “sitting target”, but the line tension and contact gives the confidence that you are still there and with them, behind them and the herd mentality is comforted, compounded, nurtured and comfortable, as they accept direction from the boss hoss…you, the teamster, driver, horseman.

But it all starts on the ground (preferable at birth) and then with whoa meaning something in the round pen and lead line.

On the driving line deal I have several sets of harness (particularly if I count the ones that are loaned to apprentices and former apprentices) and most have beta logger’s lines.

The one trick we do is use two different colored lines, with the left being brown and the right being black. We call them logger lines, since we often lay the lines down when hooking a log, so when we pick them up after a few thousand logs the horses know it is time to go back to the landing….so having instant knowledge of which line is in which hand by the different colors can help a horsemen standing and walking in the brush beside a log arch with about 250 board feet of hardwood coming out of a holler. This doesn’t mean that I let them go as soon as I pick the lines up, contact starts with whoa, we are still in park, but it helps to know which side you have instantly. We just buy two different colored sets and split them. We have had harness makers make them for us also.

This is a great thread and wonderful text advice…..but applying it with your animals is not as easy as reading any of these master’s words….hang out with some of the older hands when you can and keep practicing….

Whoa is the most important command… or as we say, if they don’t have a park, then none of the other gears count…..

There is great writing in this forum and should be read by every beginner horseman. It would have been cool to find this when I was starting out….

[Gabe Ayers]

Farmer Brown’s Plow Shop at:

[url]http://www.farmerbrownsplowshop.net./[/url]

There are probably several other places that you can buy an evener also. If you have neighbors that work animals they may have a source for equipment also.

[Gabe Ayers]

http://percheron-international.blogspot.com

This is the web site address for a fellow in France that photos logging horses.

It would be of particular interest to anyone that reads French. Beautiful photos in a magazine he sent us last year. Great work going on in France and Europe with horses in the forest.

[Gabe Ayers]

Good point to bring up Michael. Thanks.

We simply buy vegetable oil at the grocery store and run that in our bar lube system. It varies in price from about 6.00 per gallon to sometimes less when on sale. It is usually soybean oil and we find no difference in the lubrication properties for the chain.

You all probably know about the fellow Paul Samets of Fungi Perfecti in Oregon that makes a biodegradable bar oil that has mushroom spores in it. The idea being to inoculate the woody debris with edible mushroom spores in the course of doing the work. It is really expensive also.

In our part of the forested regions we find that just the vegetable oil and providing the food for the fruit of decay will grow plenty of edible and saleable gourmet mushrooms, particularly oyster mushrooms on poplar debris. So spending the extra money for something that will naturally occur doesn’t make much sense. Our group has been inspired and guided about special forest products by Gary Anderson the “Foresteader” (my name for him) of The Forest School Inc., http://www.roughcreekfarm.com

The challenge of cultivating or collecting wild mushrooms is to get folks to walk in their woods often enough (once every three days at least, during growing season) to observe and harvest the flushes when they occur.
We often leave our skid trails clear with the exception of some pro-passive water diversion (small wood laid across as water diversion, as opposed to dug water bars) and then clear a connecting loop on the end and try to convince the landowners to use them as exercise walking paths where they may find some great food along the way.

Do you find the Vermont Family Forest has any interest in modern animal powered forestry?

[Gabe Ayers]

We have a fellow in our group that has a smaller Suffolk stallion that would cross nicely on a Halflinger. This horse is for sale and is about 1500 pounds and short in statue. He is broke to work and can be seen on the http://www.suffolkpunch.com
site. His name is Cumberland’s Jango. He is just simply not being used in his current location.

He is owned by Ian Snider at: 828-266-3379, mtnworks@gmail.com

I will post him on the horses for sale page here too…

I think he may be bought for a reasonable price. Ask him what he will take?

I have bred three normal sized (1600 lbs.) Suffolk mares to this horse and the offspring are small around 1500. So a cross with a large pony would likely be small also and have the characteristics of both breeds…great working animal..

[Gabe Ayers]

Ira and several northern horse loggers convinced us to switch to D-ring several years ago. They simply make the horses more comfortable with the tongue weight. You will notice in the upcoming Rural Heritage RFD-TV series that our horses stand perfectly still when at rest, never rubbing their heads on the breast yoke or wringing their necks….

We got our conversion kits from Peach Lane Harness shop in Pa. As mentioned before we use a 46 and 48 inch wide double tree and breast yoke combo. We use 28 inch whiffle trees on the breast yoke to keep the front traces off the horses forearms to prevent chaffing as I have seen on some horses worked in D-ring regularly. We get our metal double tree, breast yoke, wide whiffle trees from Dale Stolfus at Log Cabin Sales in Pa. I don’t have an address for him but a number is: 717-940-4412, email: [email]logcab7@ptd..net[/email]

Peach Lane Harness Shop
Abner S. Esh, 88 Peach Lane, Ronks, Pa. 17572
phone: 717-687-5122

I agree with Carl the front tug is to long and should be about 20 inches not 22. Also the Esh conversion kits need extra holes burnt in the nylon to allow full adjustment. Just ask for him to make it to your specifications. They cost us about 250.00 team set to convert normal western style harness to d-ring.

Hope this helps.

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