[Gabe Ayers]

Healing Harvest Forest Foundation
8014 Bear Ridge Rd. SE
Copper Hill, Va. 24079
540-651-6355

We have a web site that describes our mission, goals and objectives. We are a 501c3 public charity, non-profit organization that promotes restorative forestry through worst first single tree selection. We educate the public as to the benefits of restorative forestry and modern animal powered techniques. When funding is available we support the practitioners of this work with technical, networking and financial assistance.

All donations are tax deductible and truly appreciated. We accept anything of value that can be used to further the mission of the organization. We have been in existence since 1999. Web site address below.

Thanks to Carl and Lisa for hosting this wonderful site….and their annual event.

Warm Salute,

Jason Rutledge

[Gabe Ayers]

I always recommend an old hero of mine, the late Dr. Leon Minckler, He has a title something like managing a small woodlot that is available through Rural Heritage under his name.

He is the fellow that said forester’s could be the most important people for the survival of the human species and the planet if they would take their job seriously…..he said that over twenty five years ago, way ahead of his time…. He was in his nineties and a retired professor that supported our worst first single tree selection, through modern animal powered logging, a real statement in those days….but he said to me once, that if he every heard I was high grading he would come back and from the top of the canopy drop a limb on me as a spirit. He was cool man, a visionary.

I read this book years ago and recommended it to RH as a starter sustainable forestry book, although he doesn’t use the buzz words, just good common sense. Of course I loaned it out (signed copy no less) and haven’t seen it sense….I don’t loan books anymore….

I remember Mitch Landsky wrote a book called Forestry as if tomorrow Mattered or something like that….that sounds like a good title too.

Of course I recommend anyone interested go to our web site and read the material in the documents section and the Forest Understories section to see how we describe what we do. Particularly the Forestland, A Natural Capital System and Nature’s Tree Marking System, common sense worst first selection guidelines. Also the Forest Understories section has some exchanges that describe the Swede Cut timber felling method in text form. It is all good reading and public information for someone wanting to take the best care of their forest.

Address below.

[Gabe Ayers]

Hello Aaron Lee,

One suggestion is to take some private instruction if you can afford it. We offer a private instructional course which is listed in the calendar of events on this site for April 6-11, 2008. The cost for the entire week of hands on intensive training including housing and board at the beautiful Bent Mountain Lodge is: $1600.00. We require a deposit of half to hold a spot for the week.

We simply take the students to the woods with us daily starting at the barn in the morning with the horses. Since this is adult education all the students know what they need to learn and we try to focus on their expressed interest. Probably one of the best things about the experience is being in the company of other folks with the same goals and principles and in the company of great horses that know there job. We focus on natural horsemanship and try to introduce folks to the new way of working with animals through acceptance training.

If you can’t afford that, and I truly understand that reality for many worthy candidates for becoming a Biological Woodsmen, then you can seek out a mentor in your own community. If you can find someone that is practicing modern horse logging or farming, just go do whatever you have to do to work with them.

I work with a 501c3 non profit that trains folks that can’t afford private instruction, but our funding is limited to people that will work in a particular
region of the country, the grantors sometimes call it a Biosphere, or watershed, like the whole planet is less than one Biosphere? I wish we had funding to educate everyone that inquired from anywhere on the planet….we just don’t have the funding.But that is exactly why we started the non profit public charity to support those that couldn’t afford private instruction. Environmental organizations get millions to educate the public about environmental issues and we think of our work as being environmental actualist. Some just think of it as to practical if you can believe that….

Also you may go to our web site and read all of the material there in the documents section, media section (atricles0 and the Forest Understory section that shares several exchanges with other folks getting started in this lifestyle/business. Read everything on this site too. Sometimes there is good information on the Front Porch at Rural Heritage. You may find a mentor there.

Let me know what you think, don’t give up, keep seeking knowledge, particularly through experience. I think our web site address will come up in the signature on this message. Good luck. Glad you are here on this site and interested.

Jason

[Gabe Ayers]

Hey Folks,

Just a short note to say that Patsy was sold last week to a local fellow, just in time to pay for some more Canadian Hay to feed the ones still here. Times of tough in the Appalachians, logs are cheap hay is scarce and the winter has been a perpetual mud season uninterrupted by a few shallow frozen ground days.

Good luck to all…I will delete this after a while, giving folks a chance to see she is sold.

Jason

[Gabe Ayers]

Luke, since you use the southern y’all word, I definitely have some thoughts about this question.

My thoughts come from the 30 years experience of being a forester and working for several foresters over those years. Notice the “for” instead of “with” choice of words.

There are some good foresters in this world, but not many. Probably about as many as “good” politicians. On that note I suggest any forester that wants to be in the company of good foresters, look into the Forest Guild as an alternative to the Society of American Foresters.

If “Foresters” had the answer to what is sustainable forestry then no one would be asking the question, because we would already be practicing it. Foresters have directed the general management strategy over the last fifty years or so (at least on Industrial and Publicly owned land) or at least had an opportunity to influence the management through example and simply haven’t gotten the job done from an actual “growing the forest” perspective. They simply serve the forest products industries need for cheap cellulose (wood pimps?). Again this is a generalization and there are individuals that have practiced great forestry as foresters and they have been an inspiration to me and the small number of folks actually interested in being “restorative and therefore sustainable”. Two that come to mind are Clint Trammel formerly of Pioneer Forest in Missouri and Marshall Pecore of Menominee Forest in Wisconsin. They both prescribe worst first single tree selection, except in rare settings of mostly even aged natural monoculture stands, like the school house white pine site on Menominee.

I understand how foresters are run through a gauntlet of testing which is essentially brainwashing to prescribe even aged management to correct previous high grading as mentioned in an earlier post. I hear this from young alternatively minded forestry students currently in school.

But back to the premise of the question. Yes we need to work “with” foresters if we can. It is a challenge, because most foresters work on an percentage of stumpage basis and there isn’t enough volume or value from a restorative harvest to pay a share to everyone involved when you leave the best trees to grow as old as possible. Yet the sharecrop model is rejected by most foresters and comments are made that it leads to high grading. Meanwhile it is common for foresters to prescribe a diameter limit cut which is just another way of describing a high grade and has the same degrading effect upon the forested conditions.

So we have developed our approach to be somewhere in the middle. There is no doubt that just being a horse logger doesn’t make your forestry good. It may make your extraction low impact, but good forestry is about more that extraction. Good forestry is about good silviculture, or the science of growing trees. Modern conventional forestry is about harvesting trees cheaply, not about growing trees as a part of an interdependent ecosystem that is a living system of organisms where trees are the dominants species but are not unconnected from all the life around them. I don’t know who made the statement about “Not seeing the forest for the trees” but somehow I suspect it was not a forester, although it should have been. Maybe an ecologist said that. Does anyone know where that statement came from? In that euphemism is much truth and vision.

I actually met David Smith many years ago at the Seven American Forest Congress in DC. (That is a big forestry event that started when John Muir met with Teddy Roosevelt and the National Forest system was established.) When I asked him about “uneven aged management through single tree selection” he said it was commercially not practical. That quote was from his text book Carl mentioned. The next sentence said something like this was the best method to preserve the aesthetic beauty of the forest but was not economically gainful. I submit that the times have changed and the values of the smaller landowner’s demand a different approach to forest management. I submit that if what is good for the ecology is good for the economy, particularly given new information or perspective about the forests contribution to ecological services and our best attempt at serving planetary health.

Our approach does attempt to upgrade the education of the ground level workers to understand the benefits of restorative forestry. It differentiates the Biological Woodmen from the horse logger or mechanized logger as a way of changing the system from the bottom up. The main difference is that it promotes a sense of community and ownership of the future forest by creating a workforce that is superior in the practice of “restorative forestry”.
The only way you can get a forest products harvester to leave the best trees is to give the a sense of ownership in the future conditions of the forest. We attempt to define that through management agreements that link future harvest to the current harvester and use the non-profit as the link to that future forest. But instead of only relying upon legal documents we prefer to rely on what my mentor Charlie Fisher did by proving that he was the best at the work. That is a cultural value and empowerment of the ground level workers through education and ethics. It is a challenge but one we find to be more community based than trying to get foresters to work “with” us to accomplish this goal of forest restoration. We do have a couple of foresters that understand our approach and send us bids also on jobs that are within our standards, but they are even more rare than Biological Woodsmen in Virgina. Usually the jobs are to distant for one of our practitioners to take it on.

Another important statistic is that over 70 percent of the logging jobs conducted in Virginia are a matter of a logger and a landowner shaking hands and the degrading starts. This is not a good approach. Both parties are short sighted in their participation in such a process. I often wonder if either one really knows what they are doing in the big picture or long term perspective.
I doubt it. If they do, I don’t know how they live with themselves? I understand how the schools teach the foresters that there job is to protect the landowner from the evil logger, but they could do a much better job than making the logger accountable for the short term economics and BMP’s.

This is a very complex and worthy set of issues that we may continue to discuss on this tiny forum.

Thanks for being here Luke.

PS – I would be happy to work with a forester that could sharpen a chainsaw and drive a pair of horses as well as Carl and probably you.

[Gabe Ayers]

Try to test drive them a little before loading the wagon with kids. They probably are familiar with the route and experience of hauling people around, but test drive them on your own first to be comfortable. Good luck, nice to working with horses in any setting.

[Gabe Ayers]

This is a great thread to further the success of anyone interested in working with animals in the forest or on the farm.

Since I have served as a mentor to many younger horseman over the years it is an interesting reflection to think of those that influenced my actually being a mentor today.

Having been born to a teenager in 1950, I was raised primarily by my grand parents. So my male role model was my Grandfather, Willie Farrar or Papa.

This created a time warp with my male parent being a man that grew up in the time when animal power was the only method available to average people in rural America. Papa was illiterate and couldn’t read or write much more than his name. He could count pretty well. My grandmother said he had no choice but to work at home on the farm to help the family survive as he was a teenager during the early parts of the twentieth century. He was born in 1905. His father was a Sargent in the Confederate Army and fought in the civil war. So talk about a time warp, this was one unique to being born at the middle of the century. My family was poor and my earliest memories include the life of being a sharecropper in south side Virginia on what would come to be called tobacco row. I remember waking up in a tobacco slide on the way to the pack house being pulled by a gray mule that knew exactly what to do and operated on voice commands. We moved from farm to farm making crops that were sold and the proceeds split between the landowner and the people that actually did the work. This was the time of great abandonment of farms throughout the country. People were moving to the towns and cities to get work in factories and industry instead of farming. My grandmother always had a job in town as well as on the farm and in the home and Papa farmed and looked after me. Since his living was made through his skills to operate different animals in all sorts of situations there were many individual horses, mules and teams that I remember him farming and logging with. This work was always done with black sharecroppers that also lived on the farms with us in tenant houses. We all worked together and as I recall shared in the proceeds equally. Some distinct memories are the smells of sweat – human, animal and the smells of tobacco, sorghum, sawdust and manure. When the crops were sold, the molasses made and the hogs killed, we went to the woods for the winter and worked there until it was time to put in the plant beds for the coming seasons seedlings. The one remarkable recollection is that I never remember Papa being loud with his animals. He was always quiet and deliberate with them. I remember he always had favorites because those were the ones he would allow to baby sit me, as I often rode them while he worked, holding onto the hame balls, that I to this day don’t know what else they are there for. So my Papa was my mentor without me even knowing it.

As I grew into a teenager, and as my grandmother described it, she finally “broke Papa of his farming habit”, he took a public job at a tractor dealer or went to town to earn a living too. But he never quit messing with animals. He had a relationship with the man that ran the killer barn that actually slaughtered horses for export as it was called Cavalier Export. He would pick up horses from this fellow that would call and tell him he had a nice pair and we would bring them home. Papa and my grandmother finally did buy a little piece of land that sat on the side of a major highway between Lynchburg and Richmond in a long sweeping curve. He had a big garden spot there that was visible for a long distance from both directions. He would bring those work horses home from the killer barn and work them in that garden spot until they were content to stand. He had me make a sign that we put out on the roadside that read: Garden Horses For Sale. We would drive them around and around the patch of tilled ground not in garden until they would stand quietly and he would sit under a white oak and sip on a PBR that he kept hidden in a cinder block hole under a board that I sat on. He always pretended to hide it from Grandma, but she knew it was there. He sold many horses and some mules that way. He did have one yoke of steers, that I remember would follow you anywhere. The killer man didn’t like killing those good serviceable animals either, so it was a win/win for him and Papa. Back then we used to haul everything in a cattle truck or a pick up with racks on it. I remember some rock and rolls rides home from the killer barn. So without really applying for the job, Papa was my first mentor even though I didn’t know it at the time. During this process I meet many other horsemen and farmers, who all addressed my grand father with respect. I remember him being called out to pull stuck trucks out of the woods, ditches and to work gardens throughout the community within driving distance with the animals. He enjoyed it and I did too, because I was always included in those activities and felt like a part of it.

I of course went on to school and moved away to an area that had cheaper land I could afford to get started and when Papa was on his death bed he told me to go to the little farm get all the stuff I wanted to farm with. I still have some of his plows and hardware today and still use his singletree when logging with one horse to bunch logs for the team or train young horses in the woods. I now feel very lucky to have had this cultural background and try to share the same experiences with every young person I can, through our mentor apprentice training with HHFF. I suppose it is easy to see how we developed our “sharecrop” split on timber from this story. I think the important thing about being a mentor is knowing that those experiences for a beginner will last a lifetime.

Later in my life of being a modern horseman I had two other significant mentors. The first was the man that sold me my first log arch. His name was Charlie Fisher of Valley Veneer Company in Andover, Ohio. I traveled to visit him after meeting a friend of his on the horse pulling circuit. Charlie also was not a formally educated man, but he introduced me to “worst first” although he didn’t call it that. He was a great horseman that had a big team that would tight tug every load and was awesome stout. He never used drugs or electricity to train or compete with his horses. He took me to several sites he had logged multiple times and they were the best forest I had ever seen. Charlie passed away a few years ago, but I think his son David is still working in the woods of northwestern Ohio. He was a great mentor and forester.

My other mentor was/is one of writing about the culture of life in the country in the modern world. He was/is a writer that lives what he writes and influenced my way of thinking about modern rural life. I read everything he writes and have enjoyed countless hours of deep thinking about my own life. I eventually met this man and came to be friends and a partner in promoting the cultural values we all share on this forum. I have worked with him in the woods and came to know his family as an extended family of my own. I recommend this form of mentoring in this modern time of not having family and neighbors to learn from. Read everything you can find written by Wendell Berry.

Each of you that are learning the skills of modern animal powered culture will one day be a mentor for someone, so enjoy yourself, carry on the culture with
any mentor you can find and share what you learn with anyone sincerely interested. This is the only way we can keep this lifestyle alive. Maybe one day the skills will again become a part of mainstream education, but some of us elders may not live long enough to see that. We will give what we can to the next generation and hope for the same gift to be shared in the future with others. When we grant an apprenticeship through HHFF we require a commitment to teach others what you learn.

Hope this story wasn’t to long for our readers. Thanks to everyone for sharing.

Warm Salute,

[Gabe Ayers]

Luke, Good to hear from you,

I just wanted to add some additional data collected by our Industry U. down here. In 1999 a research project revealed that 52% of the forest land in Virginia was in tracts of 40 acres of less owned by private individuals. This demographic was hard for some folks to believe but it is and was true at the time. I used this data to try to gain support for low cost, low impact, low production systems such as HHFF promotes and many on this site practice. I admitted that it was a “niche” that we could fulfill, because the primary concern or conclusion of this research was the worry that the industry would run out of wood to supply their sawmills since these smaller tracts were not available/accessible economically or culturally by industrial methods. Only a few accepted our place in the largest industry in our state, even as a “niche”.

I have tired of throwing pearls to the swine of industry. They* want to clearcut the planet, siting supposedly good sound science that a former high graded site can only regenerate shade intolerant species from even aged management, read clear cut. That is an industrial myth aimed at keeping resources cheap and skilled labor as slaves. Don’t get me wrong here, we have many allies in industry, the truly wise ones see our place as beneficial and worthy. They have no choice, the private landowners will not accept mechanized methods in most cases.

Now, less than a decade later I received an invitation to attend a workshop from the Va. Dept. of Forestry entitled: Business opportunities with Small Acreage and Suburban Woodlands. My response was that we should be presenting at this workshop since we have been saying this for more than a decade and practicing what we preach, but that request was not responded to at all – silence. That is not a surprise, they have not really helped us much yet and for the most part they probably won’t help us in the future. They all should buy more Exxon stock and then Exxon should buy out Maxwell House Coffee so they can use their slogan of “Good to the last Drop”. This 2008 brochure had the current data: “Landowners with less than 10 acres now own 73% of forest properties in Virginia.”

We agree with their approach in some ways. If we practice restorative forestry everywhere – through worst first single tree selection and the ultimate low impact overland extraction method of modern animal power – then the property line doesn’t matter. They are not going to convince landowners to let machines tear the their woods up no matter how they attempt to bundle the tracts. Sure we use machines in our logging operations, but from stump to landing – animal power is superior. The above system presents the only “carbon positive forestry” currently available.

Don’t forget your roots man, your anthropological culture will reward you in addition to your degree. There are lots of us with degrees, many Biological Woodsmen and others on this site have degrees too. It is what one does with their life, knowledge, skills and ethics that will make them successful and happy.

So – Carry on and finish what you started educationally and then get back in the woods – anywhere….we all need you. Don’t feel alone there in the halls of higher education, there are young people in most University Forestry programs that feel the same way as you do and are getting their degrees to have the “credentials” to support their common sense and personal vision. I meet a few of them regularly, to few, but I’m thankful nonetheless.

I hope this doesn’t sound to radical, but that is just what we have experienced and it is getting to late to turn our backs on what we know is best. Thanks for writing Luke.

*They = Industrially funded academic institutions, research and industry in general….not exclusively, but generally. Disclaimer – We (HHFF) are thankful for what positive relationships and support we garner from “They”, but it is not enough to equal the proven methods we promote and practice and should have earned by now.

[Gabe Ayers]

Michael,

Thanks for sharing the story of loosing Big John. There is not much anyone can say to make it easier to deal with. But all of us that have been teamsters for a while have had to deal with it also. So in the interest of sharing I want to include an article written by Chad Vogel, (one of our Biological Woodsmen Mentors) about the loss of one of his and some other good horses. It was printed in our DRAFTWORKS newsletter and probably hasn’t been read by most of the members on this site. I hope you all enjoy it, if there is a chance for enjoyment in this situation. Please accept my condolences sir and carry on…..

Jason

In Memory of Fran, Skidder, and Henry.
By Chad Vogel

The feel of a good team in your hands is wonderful; having the slightest bit of tension in the lines, the horse’s long plodding steps, and to feel 300 board feet dragging behind you. It is pleasing to calmly and quietly say, “whoa,” and having the pair of beasts come to a halt and immediately be in a relaxed position, the lines now slacked, two heads slightly drooping, and each with one hind foot cocked up and resting. Their rapid breathing rocks the log arch back and forth just slightly. Gathering some tension in the reins again, the heads slightly perk up as four ears swivel back to me and I speak, “come up.” Two bodies lean confidently into the collars. The haunches sink down and the feet dig in to the ground, which heaves slightly under the pressure, and the load starts to move. Once more the load is carried by the long plodding steps. Yes, a good team is a wonderful thing. I had one once, with the names of Ridge and Fran.
It was morning when I first got the news. The night before I had spent driving home from northwestern Pennsylvania with Jason Rutledge and Ben Harris. I got home and into bed at about 3:00 a.m. and was awakened at 8:00 a.m. by a confused and startled voice saying, “Chad?… Fran’s dead.”
If you have ever received unexpected news you know that the impact of the startling information takes a little bit to sink in. When I heard what Becky, my girlfriend, just told me I felt absolutely numb. I felt distinctly less than just moments before; when my head was still resting dreamily on my pillow. I felt as if my slate had just been wiped completely clean. It was as if the steady flow of emotion that slips through the human psyche in normal levels was suddenly dammed, and I was standing dumbly on the dry side. I felt absolutely nothing.
A man in a severe drought knows that a hard rain will bring no relief but will simply wash the topsoil away leaving the land more barren than before. So I knew that my temporary emotional drought was bound to come rushing back and then leave me raw and bare. The first cracks started to tremble through the dam when I saw her from a long ways off, lying there motionless in the field. Maybe it is that complete lack of animation that gives away the fact that a being is dead. Maybe it is something more deeply set than that, maybe living things can somehow recognize when a soul has left a body. Whatever it is, death can most definitely be perceived by man and beast alike. I could tell by the sunken heads and pensive looks that the two other horses in the field where giving their former partner, and for one, former mother; that they knew exactly what had happened. I can remember a similar incident where the reaction of Jason’s faithful gelding Wedge was to stand on his tip toes in the far corner of the paddock, trembling with shock and disbelief as he looked on at his fallen brother and work partner.
As I drew closer to my dead horse my own reaction made a rapid change from shock to mourning. The cracks that had been swelling in the emotional dam gave way as I drew close enough to see her slightly open and remarkably dry looking mouth. I was simply swept away with the current. I cried like I had not cried in a long time. I wandered back and forth, first kneeling by her side, stroking here dark chestnut neck and face and then petting and caressing her grieving herd mates. Though she had always been a broad mare, her distended belly, bloated and taught, was unnaturally big; an unmistakable sign of colic.
I spent much of the remaining day that way, wandering about, feeling helpless, bursting into uncontrollable streams of tears from time to time.
But as numbness gives way to grief, so grief gives way to reflection. I remembered Jason’s horse Skidder and what a faithful partner and worker he was. I remember looking on at the one-man funeral procession comprised solely of Jason. He was following his dead horse as it was drug up to the field, past the pine stand, to the horse graveyard to be buried with his predecessors. I remember wondering whether I should join him and if he needed companionship and support, or if he just needed time to be alone with his horse. I wondered just what he was feeling at that time. Now, two years later, I think I understand.
I also recalled remarks Chad Miano had made about his horse Henry. I heard how he had been a beautiful, well-mannered, and hard working stallion. He told me it was a long time before he recovered from the loss of that horse and was then able to build up the good team he has today.
After Jason lost his first horse he called his grandfather who gave him this gruff, yet sound advice, “You’ll bury ‘em all if you keep ‘em long enough.” He said, “Get yourself another horse and go back to work.”
I was lucky that Becky had a good little mare that I could put in to work beside Fran’s old partner. She is working better and better all the time.
This coming weekend I’m going to pick up a new five-year-old gelding. I hope to have him working in no time.
Now, as I continue to reflect, I realize that all is not lost. When you are as young and foolish as I am, you think you know and understand just about everything. Then something like losing a horse comes and completely blows you away, and you come to realize that there is a lot in this world that you have yet to experience and overcome. This was just my first experience of losing a horse. Is an experience that horse-folk have been having since man first started to bridge the gap between the world of horse and the world of men.
Yes, I had a good team once, but we have all had good teams, we have all lost good teams, and we will all have good teams again.

[Gabe Ayers]

How did get to talking about mules on the favorite horse page…well favorite animal would be cool.

I do have two young fillies that will be bred to a thoroughbred or a jack for the first foal. It depends on which one will make me the most money for the gestation and mare care plus stud fee. I am torn. We have two young female people in our family that really want a fancy riding horse, a thorofolk…warmblood – then of course I need for the animals to pay for their keep and care.

I read a book once entitled: “Live and Learn and Die and Forget it All”. It was a great book entertaining and full of funny stories. I forget who wrote it and have loaned it out to never see it again. It was the life story of a mule trader in the south about fifty (70) or more years ago. He told a story about his favorite pair of mules ever. They were about 1250 Suffolk mules, solid red. He told stories about taking them to livestock sales and making bets on them out pulling any other pair of mules around and when people would take him up on the bet they would hook them evener to evener with winner take all sometimes. He said he won many pairs of big draft mules that way and eventually sold the Suffolk mules for big money.

I have no such plans – but always remembered that story and wondered what a solid red pair might be worth….I could use them myself in the heat of summer, even in the Appalachians. My luck they would be male and sorrel. I don’t think they would be as tall as Belgian or Perch mules, but they would have that same determination to pull hard like their mothers.

I’ll let you know J L if I decide to sell a pair if I actually find a big red or sorrel Jack to cross them with. If not the girls will get some fancy riding horses that I will probably end up keeping their entire natural lives.

[Gabe Ayers]

The most dangerous part of logging with animal power is the chainsaw safety aspect. We teach the methods of Soren Erickson a Swedish man that developed a technique that identifies the reactive forces of the chainsaw bar.
Meaning that this is what happens when the moving chain touches anything.

They taught three but we have added the plunge force. So there are four forces to the bar. The top of the bar pushes back toward the operator, the bottom of the bar pulls the saw away from the operator, the bottom of the tip is used to plunge and the top half of the tip kicks. During the first three days of the training, every time you are asked to practice a technique and compete in a display of your skills, you have to first – identify the forces of the bar. It is drilled into you after three days of constant naming the forces. Each of the task are explained through the defining of the reactive forces. Recognizing and using the forces to do the work is important, but the safety of recognizing the kick force is obvious.

I think an important skill is to learn to never use any more power or throttle or engine speed and chain speed than necessary to make the cut you want. It is almost like starting your horses with only as much power as you need to move the load, but in the chainsaw it is about the finger on the throttle, but even more dangerous.

These are terrible accidents and I am so sorry for you folks loosing your friends. Any loss of life is tragic and this small community of interest needs all the folks we can get.

I agree, think about them each time you pick up a saw….but foremost….get some professional training for your own safety. It may save your life….and it will certainly make the work easier, more skilled and enjoyable.

Be careful out there folks. Get some training if you don’t already have some.

Use the training, develop safe work habits and take your time.

[Gabe Ayers]

I am afraid I don’t know anything about palm trees being sawn for lumber.

Maybe go to the closest sawmill and ask them or look on their logyard.

Good luck,

[Gabe Ayers]

Donn,

That dog is earning his “gravy train” for sure, cool photo, great way of making a pet into a useful draft animal – in addition to being a faithful friend. Thanks for sharing that man. I had noticed it when I first went to your album. Draft mutt, awesome use of your animal power. My dog is to small to provide much draft power and she just barks while I’m sleeping and keeps an eye on the place while I rest. She does a good job at being a friend and organic alarm.

Where did you get that harness arrangement you have on the pooch?

You should post this photo on the other animals place on the photo gallery page.

Thanks,

[Gabe Ayers]

Donn,

We surely use the different settings on the bits, but don’t change the line placement unless we are driving a horse for the first time.

There are three settings on the Military Show Bit and we work the solid straight bar bit type. Top setting is little or no leverage, the second is moderate leverage and the bottom is most severe pressure. We have no horses that require the bottom setting, but my main pair are comfortable in the middle setting. We do move them around depending on the horses moods and attitudes. If the younger horse wants to be to fast and maybe is anticipating the start of a load we may drop the leverage for a few logs and then go back. Many of the older horses use no leverage or the top setting. Our stallions work without any leverage, they are smart, brave, lazy and only need slight signals to control their rate of travel, starts, backing up and turning.

When driving a horse for the first time we keep one line completely free so if they do get away you can hold that one line and they will turn back towards you – facing you and stop.

It is lever, sorry for the Lever typo earlier, I could also use a proof reader, but work on it alone mostly, after everything else is done or since that never happens on the farm, after I am tired of doing everything else and the horses are cared for and ready for tomorrow. They run tomorrow on what we fed them twelve hours earlier or today.

Bit placement or adjustment is important. It needs to be tight enough to put two wrinkles in the corner of their mouths, so they can’t get their tongue under it. The curb chain is self adjusting by twisting the chain to lay flat and pull it as tight as you can and then when it slips down the hook it is adjusted. The point is unless they push through the bit there is no curb pressure applied, which is how you get light contact or power steering.

If I could think what I wanted a horse to do and get a response I would, but in lieu of that extra sensory connection, we use voice and minimum contact to get it to the least signals for the most control.

I agree that horses sense your nervousness, so be relaxed, calm, but alert…

Nice to hear from a female horseman. Man, in “horseman” being a contraction of human, not a gender restriction.

Great thread, looking forward to reading more.

[Gabe Ayers]

Well, this could develop into a long discussion. Anyone that has worked with animals for any length of time has experienced the extreme side of prey animal fear/flight survival instinct – running away.

I am only a horseman and know nothing about bull whipping. If I live long enough I hope to go where ever Drew Conroy is working and help him, so I may learn.

I’ll start the discussion about equine. The aha moment for me was when I discovered the lever bit. A run away – (despite all the best efforts of any human) – offers the occasion of using the primal instinct of fear to stop the animals as a safe choice. If horses are afraid and run, they will equally be afraid of the serious signals of a level bit. They simply will chose to not run through the pain of the bit when adjusted properly and close attention to their postures. Not that the object is to give them pain, but that going forward is less comfortable than not going forward. The point is to not use the pressure of the leverage for pain, but to have horses that operate with “power steering” versus manual. It is just real nice to have horses that know what whoa means. It comes back to the park gear analogy I make in an earlier post. If they don’t have a park, none of the other gears count, because without it the horse is dangerous to work with.

The lever bit applies three pressures. One on the bar, one on the chin and one on the pole. After thirty years of working hundreds of horses this is the only bit I will work with. Insurance companies have required that people working in public settings use them to get a reduced rate or insurance at all. That is a safety concern, addressed by a perceived remedy, proven by some of the biggest crooks in modern life hedging their bets by requiring a lever bit. (forgive the insurance bash, if you can afford to)

We use a cheap solid brass Military Show Bit, sometimes called an Elbow bit.

Although knowing you can stop horses, doesn’t make it any easier to be a good horseman. One still must have a degree of horse sense and common sense. A unique ability to be present to the situation at hand and be the kind boss horse in the herd, and more…

When we teach at our Biological Woodsmen classes we spend hours discussing the determination of safe side/danger side. This should be a consideration of everything you do on the farm or in the woods. This is a part of the state of the art hand felling (chainsaw) of timber and continues throughout the process of utilizing the ultimate low impact overland extraction technique – animal power. For example – the safe side is uphill, out of the circle of moving objects not aligned straight behind your animals and in the location where you can see the most of what is going on.

Anticipation of the next action and reaction… – knowing what will happen in one situation or another, particularly in complex operations is only acquired through experience.

But being taught to think about it from “safety first” is part of professional training at any dynamic physical job. It is our mantra.

Your work starts with assessing danger and planning your moves out to avoid scary situations when you can. Just as there are proper procedures to harness, hitch, drive and care for your horses, there are culturally important aspects requiring thinking ahead, while being present to what is at hand.

This will be a great thread. If we don’t help new people (= each other) be successful then they will be less likely to stick with it. I think all us elders can still learn something too – maybe work our horses a little longer.

There is nothing more important to learning the skills of doing anything with horses – than safety. Life is dangerous everywhere, but you throw in a couple of tons of fear equals flight biological specimens that store more energy in their muscle cells than anything else on land and you got power enough to kill you, others and themselves.

I look forward to seeing the thread grow. This is a subject that can’t be exhausted or over discussed. Thanks for posting Kristin

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