[Gabe Ayers]

I almost totally agree with all Carl says here, so don’t shoe unless you have too. We have to shoe for exactly why Carl explains. We like to get on the big logs -as frequently if possible.

The only difference (probably just in the words written by Carl*), is that we would go get the snatch block and cable first. The tractor stays out of the woods, if possible. And it is possible to not take the tractor in the woods. We use physics, mechanical advantage and multiple hitches if the big log is in a hard place.

The reason we have to be well shod is because that is where the big trees are – in hard places, that is why they are there, they were hard to get the last time it was harvested – so they got left. We often harvest such trees that fit our selection criteria as over mature and in a state of decline. Big old trees, sometimes worth money, sometimes not to much. But big, heavy and in hard places to access.

I think that is missed point by many new folks to the rural world. Most forest have been harvested multiple times already. A truly pristine forest is about as rare as a flawless diamond. The amount of virgin forest left is tiny.

I also think allot of the big trees that are randomly scattered throughout a 75 year old average aged forest in Appalachia are seed trees left from the Seed Tree law that required you leave one seed tree per acre years ago. It was also not usually a great tree or the appropriate species for the site. They usually are wolf trees and have low limbs and lousy stems. But they probably did make some seeds…… which may or may not have influenced the regeneration of the forest.

* I would guess that Carl Russell doesn’t take the tractor in the woods much either, but was just joking…. If he has a tractor it is probably like mind and has at least one lousy tire and should stay on flat, dry ground to be able to pull itself around, or maybe load a log.

Jason Rutledge

[Gabe Ayers]

http://www.healingharvestforestfoundation.org/docs/LogArchPlans.xls

for some reason when I preview this post the address gets messed up.

so I will write it out and you can type it in your browser yourself.

it is http://www.healingharvestforestfoundation.org

fore slash docs fore slash LogArchPlans dot xls

sorry this is the best I can do with the site doing what it is doing to the address.

Let me know if it works for you.

Jason

[Gabe Ayers]

Mark and readers,

Something I often do when publicly speaking about the issue of money in the context of modern animal powered culture, sustainability and real life is: I reach in my back pocket, pull out my wallet and say, This is the most sensitive part of everyone’s environment. The point being that until we make it so folks can make more money doing the right things environmentally – nothing will change.

That is why I make the statement that Restorative Forestry makes the most money over the long term for everyone. Now the economics of silvicultural prescriptions could be the next discussion here and that is appropriate, but not what I want to share at this moment.

What I want to share is the overall value of what we are all interested in doing and how we see that it is very valuable to everyone on the planet beyond the current bank account balance or my wallet.

Those values do include the issue of what is it worth to maintain your human dignity of feeling good about what you are doing with yourself. That is priceless but could be quantified as a mental health issue meaning if it is what it takes to keep someone sanely progressing in life, then it is valuable, particularly when they are productive members of a community, society and economy. Productive means they are generating money. In our case it is often a creation of wealth because it wouldn’t occur without our activities. There are many forested sites that are not available to conventional methods for reasons held by the private landowners. They basically will choose to do nothing rather than clear cut or have a mechanized logger do a high grade in their woods. Remember as I said earlier this is the largest current landowner condition and therefore represents the largest single amount of forest land in that ownership status. We, modern animal powered – horse loggers can access this forest with culture, not just money. This is empowerment of the ground level worker, which is one of the goals of our organization. It is bottom up change. This is because we are the best at it. We achieve the objectives of the landowner of management for the health of the forest and provide raw materials into the industry that wouldn’t be available without our efforts. This is real wealth creation. This is currently seen by many as a niche activity, but it is a growing niche that will be further supported as time goes on.

Restorative and therefore sustainable forestry will be in more demand as we learn more about the total “Value” of the forest for the public good. Education about quantifying the value of all the Ecological Services of the forest including, Carbon sequestration and storage are one of our greatest services along with, direct income for ourselves, the landowners and the oldest and largest industry in the east….forest products. We and others are working on this value having a direct money return for the ground level practitioners. It will happen eventually, sooner than later.

How we will make more money is a matter of the economics over the long term. This will be the challenge of the future – to deal with landowners that have vision for the future and no demand for immediate money through liquidating their forested assets through conventional forestry practices.

Now the details of how we make more money are complex. The first is the consideration of how we make money practicing restorative forestry based on worst first single tree selection and modern animal powered extraction. This is done by an innovative payment system based upon traditional share cropping arrangements that have been a part of the culture or rural life in the south since the civil war. Our innovation is to pay on a sliding scale, meaning that the more the material is worth the more we pay for it to the landowner. The key is that the lower value material, which the woods are full of is not paid for at all in the first entry into a forest. This material is barely worth paying for it’s own harvesting, so you can’t pay for it and make any money. We start paying a share of the value once that material becomes more valuable than what we want as a living wage logging cost.
But when you work with a landowner that has the vision to see the improved value and production of their future forest you can make this work. Most private landowners don’t buy/own small forested tracts for speculative timber investment, but for the aesthetic beauty of the setting and their surroundings. Our method retains, improves and enhances the “look” and income production capacity of the forest by cultivating the best specimens for later harvest.

I think this is enough on this subject for now, although not complete, but I have to go out and do some other things and will return to it and see if there are any responses, questions or comments.

I always want to invite folks to our web site, which is large and seems hard to get around on, but there is much information that about exactly how we do this. Particularly the HHFF documents section. Be patient, read it all, let us know what you think. We are a 501c3 non-profit, public charity organization that exist for the public good. All donations are tax deductible. I know the folks that are on this site are not wealthy, but that needed to be said nonetheless. Every penny counts and over 80 cents of every dollar goes to the ground level workers. Compare that to most environmental organizations. particularly the bigger ones. Read about our DRAFTWOOD program, it is innovative.

We have had positive feedback from this site so far and truly appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to read this and again let us know what you think.

Jason Rutledge, one of many Biological Woodsmen

http://healingharvestforestfoundation.org

[Gabe Ayers]

We also use toe plates and heel caulks. We also use the hard face weld on the surface to help with gaining purchase on ice and rocks. The surface will last much longer with the hard face welded on the ground contact edge. We have never sharpened them but they do tend to get sharper with use. We have found that the hard face weld will make the shoes last so long that they wear out from the top and the nail holes first instead of the bottom. We usually get about two years of solid work out of them. The placement of the heel caulks on the inside edge of the shoe definitely helps with them stepping on themselves.

When they do injure themselves, we just gob some furazune on it or a topical antiseptic like the yellow greasy stuff commercially available. I think calm patient driving lessens this from occurring. The key could be making your turns (particularly 180 degree turns) at the log – slowly by controlling speed of the turn through pulsing contact with the horse on the outside of the turn. The bit contact on the inside horse determines the degree of turn and the contact on the outside horses determines the speed the turn occurs.

I do think the caulked shoes are harder to keep on the horses than flat shoes and keeping up with regular resets is important. We also like to use the regular head nails to make for easy clinching along the way to a reset.

These pulling/logging shoes definitely give the horses confidence on a heavy load. They are more able to power walk a big log out and less likely to scramble or hop on a heavy load when they are well shod. One of the most important things we can give our horses is confidence.

You are lucky to have a farrier like John Hammond work on your horses feet. Good draft horse farriers are even more rare than good draft horses users. This is why we had to develop our own ability to shoe our own horses. My son Jagger has advanced his farrier skills to be able to do this work now and it is a blessing and a considerable economic savings. Farrier services end up being the single greatest cost of logging with horses full time.

That is an interesting point too, we do actually work our horses almost every day that the weather will allow. This means no hard falling weather (rain) and wind less than 25 mph gust is working weather for us. This means we (two people,my son and I) work about 200 days a year and produce around a 100K board feet per year of “worst first” selectively logged trees. Sometimes our Sundays end up being rainy days and we do actually work on the weekends when we have the weather. Economically our ox is always in the ditch. It is a matter of making enough money to support ourselves requires this type of dedication and consistent working.

If you can’t work your horses there is often something you can do in the woods, at the sawmill, the wood working shop, the mechanic shop, the barn or the house. You also can work to promote your services in your community. When it is rainy, too cold or windy, then you can write and read information off the net like we are doing now. I am sure there are New Englander’s thinking, “to cold”, this guy has got to be a southerner…yep, I am. A southern Appalachian, that lives at 3000 feet altitude and am glad to have a portion of my forest that is a New England type forest with native Sugar Maple throughout it. Of course we have a few other (marketable) species native to Appalachia that are not found in other areas.

Keep working them when you can. Give John Hammond our regards.

Jason Rutledge
http://healingharvestforestfoundation.org

[Gabe Ayers]

This is a very interesting and complex issue. I am a forester and horse logger also. We have developed an educational program that trains people to be Biological Woodsman.

I think a problem with higher education is that it sometimes tends to make us speak in a language not understandable by average folks that have no training in a particular field of interest or study. Landowner education needs to be more than the telephone number of a consulting forester. Although some of my income is made as a consulting forester, it is mostly about landowner education – about their forest. I don’t prepare and conduct bidded sales of timber. My goal has always been to translate what I learned in forestry school to common sense speech that is clear to the non forestry folks….because those are my clients. Non Industrial Private Forestland Owners are the largest demographic among forest landownership in the eastern U.S. This is where we work daily.

Carl gives the reverse J as a measurement of what is happening in the forest, which is an approach I don’t use. This formula doesn’t help me achieve my objectives of forest restoration. Crop Tree Management does. Worst First Single Tree Selection does.

This type of academic mensuration is the epitome of not being able to see the forest for the trees. It is what we are taught in school, along with even aged management (clear cutting) being the only acceptable silvicultural prescription for formerly high graded sites (read everywhere). Our approach is much more concerned about growing high quality lumber rather than high quantity volume. The result is that what is good for the ecology is good for the economy. This will become more clear in the future.

There is so much more to the forest than capturing the maximum growth rate of the trees through management. The other values and incomes that can be generated from active forest management are much greater than the measurement of maximum board feet produced annually, in a certain age or size class. There are more values ($) than will be able to discussed by me in this forum at this point. Maybe more later.

“When you see the forest as timber production alone, you actually reduce the timber production capacity of the forest.” W.B. Particularly when you are growing high quality hardwoods or working in a naturally diverse mixed species forested condition. Of course all these consideration run all over the spectrum and accurately reflect site specific conditions. But despite all that science and knowledge it usually comes down to the former human intervention that is the greatest influence on most forest we all have to work in.

Our approach is well explained in the writing “Forestland – A Natural Capital System” and “Nature’s Tree Marking Paint “on our web site. Please read this to understand the economic analogy of a forest and stock portfolio.

Agro-Forestry or growing grass as well as trees is an old approach. The Savannah forest presents this condition and as a natural example of how this has worked in the past for Native Americans. When you are growing high quality and high value hardwood this is not appropriate. Livestock should be kept out of a natural Appalachian mixed species forest. There is already documented damage from wildlife (deer) in our forest and keeping domesticated livestock out of your woods will help them be more healthy ecologically speaking. An example of a negative aspect of livestock presence in the forest, is urine stain in what would otherwise be veneer logs.

The edge is where invasive botanical species enter the forested ecosystem and displace natural vegetation and damage ecological integrity. These invasive botanical, insect, fungal and bacteria species already represent Bio-Terrorism to me. Wow, I wonder if some email internet scanner will pick up that buzz word and turn me/us in to homeland security? Maybe so and if they do, maybe they can put a bounty on these botanical terrorist and we can pay average everyday people to battle them. It will be a more important part of natural forest management in the future. It already is here (Appalachia). Since invasive botanical species are disturbance dependent, light disturbance methods will be a good start.

Don’t get me wrong, I support having “wilderness” or places where we do nothing. The scientific method requires that we have a control plot of doing nothing so we can see the results of any treatments we do apply. This is where we may learn from nature.

This is a very complex issue and I wish I had more time to write about it at this moment, but I don’t. I hope there will be some response to this and we can all learn more from each other. I hope folks read some of the material on our web site before responding to this post. Of course anyone is welcome to come see what I am writing about at any time. It is public information, promoted by an organization that exist for the public good.

We use horses to conduct low impact restorative forestry and are very successful at it. We are only one crew of many doing this work. I have been doing this for over thirty years and know what the impact of our work is – as I have harvested several sites, several times over those years and my children will harvest them again. We often work on land that is under conservation easement to restrict future use and in the ownership of family trust, municipalities and corporate entities. The point is that it is a long term approach that requires long term tenure of ownership.

Disturbance is a part of nature. Disturbance is part of forest dynamics and is always occurring without human intervention. We believe that “restorative forestry” is the best way for man to age the forest.

In five hundred years of being left alone the forest will take care of itself and be fine. The forest doesn’t need us, we need the forest. We need it for the products we use daily, the ecological services it provides for the human good and for all the things we still don’t understand about it.

Again, I invite anyone truly deeply interested in these issues to read the material on our website, under HHFF documents. Let me know what you think…

Jason Rutledge
Biological Woodsman
http://healingharvestforestfoundation.org

[Gabe Ayers]

Let me know if you were able to download the plans from our web site.

Jason Rutledge

http://healingharvestforestfoundation.org

[Gabe Ayers]

A community in this modern world can be many things.

The geographical community or our rural countryside is suffering the lose of much culture, but it is not all gone.

This forum is a “community of interest”. We all have a common interest.

There will probably be some networking of geographical communities that result from this medium.

The community of interest will be supported in a unique way though this technology, although it is annoying to learn how to get around a site that is new, particularly for the computer challenged like myself.

There are many contributions yet to come to this forum.

John, just chill with the negative stuff.

You were/are a grumpy old man on the other site and are just about unbearable here. Just because you are unable to do certain things, with horses, working animals, forestry, farming or whatever doesn’t mean someone else can’t do those things.

I work horses for a living every day. The more I work my horses the more money I make. I make a modest income and improve my surroundings with every move. Restorative Forestry makes the most money of the long term and that is what my culture is about.

These people have culture by simply wanting to learn about something they don’t already know. That is anthropological culture. It is the most important way humans have always learned.

I am thankful for this forum but must admit that there is only so much time to give anything extra when you work many hours a day and certainly don’t get paid for writing on a chat board. We are all promoting something even if it is our own personal education or learning process.

Hopefully that is why people will read this material, to learn and teach and share.

Diversity is the strength of nature and we should be a diverse group to be strong. So let’s try to just keep it positive, like many mothers say – if you can’t say something good, say nothing at all.

Sure, tell about mistakes, but don’t be such a buzz kill for new people investigating new dreams and culture.

Jason Rutledge

http://healingharvestforestfoundation.org

[Gabe Ayers]

goodcompanion;20 wrote:

Bakers of old did everything by hand, had only rudimentary temperature and humidity control, and had only wood-fired ovens like mine. They managed. But was their bread always good and/or consistent?

I think the corrollary question to ask is what were the expectations held by the consumers of the baked bread of old? We tend to have a high standard of expectation for uniformity and quality control which seemingly flies in the face of quality of experience control for the production of the bread.

I think this is the same with nearly any trade, but a good such as yours is a perfect example.

What sorts of breads are you making?

[Gabe Ayers]

Hi Mark it’s great to have you here on DraftAnimalPower – we look forward to your involvement here.

[Gabe Ayers]

Hello DAP people,

We are always getting the same request for good horses down in Virginia. Of course being breed specific in my own operation I tend to have more connections to Suffolk horses. I have been raising and working them for about thirty years now so I know where quite a few are. We keep two stallions on the farm and breed as many mares as we can find of any breed. We actually have many more crossbred horses working in the woods with our group of practitioners associated with Healing Harvest, than purebreds or registered horses.

Among our purebred gelding Suffolk horses I am somewhat proud to say that none of them are registered. I have never understood how someone that actually worked a horse would have the extra money to register a gelding. Seems like money wasted in a few of ways. The first being the cost of registration, second the cost of membership to the association that registers the horses and the third being any transfer fees for buying a horse from someone that has a registered one. I suspect there are folks that disagree for their own reasons.

This decision is easy as an economic choice for the utilitarian horse owner. It doesn’t necessarily support the association that registers horses, but I have to keep my membership fees paid to register my own fillies and keep up with the registered mares we serve with our stallions. So I feel like I pay my dues in that way and am not inclined to spend money on registering geldings. Some people will just call me tight with money, but it is easy again to be tight with something you don’t have enough of anyway.

Sharing how we can make more money while being sustainable is the gist and heart of this site to me. That is what I will try to contribute from our experience.

Back to the thread of finding good horses for good people. Part of the mission or our non-profit organization is to support the practitioners of restorative forestry with financial and technical assistance. So we definitely network with many folks to find horses for our practitioners and homes for horses.

It is amazing to me that as the years have gone by and that because I have a personal policy of buying any horse back that is sold off our farm, that I have actually owned many Suffolk horses several times. As long at the horse is not injured physically then we take/buy them back into our extended family, Someone in the group of fifty or so modern horse loggers always needs a horse and they find a useful home quickly.

Usually the inquiries we get from registered Suffolk people is for bred, broke, young mares. Sometimes with a size and color preference. Not allot of those around and if they are they are rightly relatively expensive. There are so few of these horses that it seems appropriate that they are valuable. Having a pair of registered mares is like having a franchise in the breed. But we find found that unless the people are really farming or logging with them, they don’t last to long. Having been in this business for so long (bought my first team in 1974) I have definitely seen allot of folks come and go. I am more interested in investing my own time in the ones I think will stay. It is the same with the horses. Staying on a load is more important than starting hard on a heavy load.

There is a contrast. The inquiries we get from practitioners are usually a search for a broke gelding of substantial size (1600+) that is ready to go to the woods tomorrow. They are not easy to find either. The same reason of if they have these characteristics they are usually already gainfully employed and not for sale. But for various reasons some horses always become available and we hear about them and try to put them with good owners when we can. Sometimes I get a percentage of the sale or a finders fee, but usually I just do it as part of our 501c3 non-profit public charity work and hope the organization is successful enough to pay me a small management fee on an annual basis.

Well, maybe this gives any visitors something to read. I am glad that Lisa and Carl are doing this, good for them and us again….

Please let me know if their is anything I can do to support this cyber networking. I will post this site address on our web site and my blog and we will see if we can grow a community of interest that can benefit all of us.

We have a tremendous amount of written information on our web site for anyone that is interested in these issues. I am sure I will be referring to them as time goes along on this new site….

DRAFT ANIMAL POWER….the “Carbon Positive” culture.

Stay tuned….share it with anyone interested.

Warm Salute,

Jason Rutledge, Biological Woodsman

http://healingharvestforestfoundation.org

[Author]

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