[Carl Russell]

The tractor is just a tool in a bag of tricks. It’s just a tool that’s way too big for me to carry around. I believe in working animals as the primary way of training, and although I don’t pass any judgment about the methods used here, I subscribe to a simple concept that one of my mentor shared with me years ago. He said if you want the animal to cross the bridge, then drive them across the bridge. I can see the benefit that the tractor is bringing to the chosen endeavor, but I don’t see how the tractor plays into the long term working life of the mules. It is a tool and a technique that I would find to actually bring more to the training process than is necessary. I have never had, or worked with mules, but I tend toward more no-nonsense working routines.

It has been misunderstood for eons that restraint, or significant resistance will cause the animal to submit, and eventually accept the leadership of the trainer, but it is exactly as Donn points out, the learning happens for the animal when it displays the appropriate behavior, and the trainer shows pleasure, is relaxed, and eliminates the restraint. These are the very same aspects of communication that occur in any successful training procedure. It just depends on what tools you have, and how you want to use them. I think it is important that as trainer/leaders that we don’t impose on a particular method some degree of negativity, such as excessive restraint, or frightening. One person may be able to cause extreme fear with a feather, where another may be able to calm an animal with a boom on a tractor.

As for having a relationship with the animals, I think it is important to let them be the horse, cow, mule, or dog that they are. Similar to people, it is unproductive to try to assume that we can truly have an appreciation for what is going on in their heads. I am not afraid to show my animals that I am caring, and can be gentle, but it doesn’t mean that I expect them to be my best friend. I work my animals for purposeful endeavors, and that is why I have them. I take a lot of pride in the marks I leave behind me, and I value the part that those animals play in that, but the part they play has more to do with how I approach and manage them than it does with them individually.

Our greatest tool for working with animals is our sensitivity. If we are uncomfortable with some approach we will be ineffective with our animals. Just because someone wants to take a little longer, or go lighter, doesn’t mean they won’t be just as effective. When I was finally able to read this post I was so pleased to see that this site has become such a place where so many people with different experiences come together and can share. Each of us has to be entrenched to some degree in our own perspective, I know I am, but reading this whole thread from start to finish for the first time one can see so many good points made by all of you.

Thanks, Carl

[Carl Russell]

I don’t think it is related to be trained as a puller.

As Donn says he is just showing anxiety as he has developed expectations associated with the weight. I have had horses that have only worked with me start acting like that.

It may be as simple as he is getting so used to your routine that he is leading himself to second-guess you. Try taking him into the working setting, and going through the motions without hitching him, until he just turns around and stands quietly.

This may be one of those typical experiences where a horse will demonstrate his anxiety as a way to derail the order that is set up by the teamster. Don’t let the behavior derail you, but mix up your routine so that he will not be able to second-guess you, and will look to you for guidance.

He may have done a lot of work, but it all may have been a lot of walking with a relatively light load, on wheels etc., and the dragging of the logs is going to require a bit more exposure before he is comfortable.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

What started as a labor of love, has turned into outright labor, and I know Lynn has been trying hard for several years to find someway that he remains inspired by SFJ, which has led to a more eclectic expression.

In my mind it is still the best publication that I can subscribe to. There is no other publication that is more connected to the community that I have interest in.

One person’s creative expression is often misunderstood by many, and SFJ has always been an attempt by Lynn to include the expressions of many in concert with his own, a huge, uncertain, and generous enterprise.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

I am less concerned about something as you describe, as it is a reference to something that is already circulating from someone else, and it is directly related to what we are all about. The only problem that we may want to work to avoid is people getting too judgmental and/or defensive. We all are allowed to have our own judgments and prejudices, but we don’t have to get too onerous about them on this site. I think discussions about these types of issues are appropriate, and timely, as long as we can maintain some civility.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

They need all the contacts they can get, because the “settlers” there are encouraged to cut down the forest completely, or sell the timber to a logging company with the result of total deforestation, and they do not even use their mules for draft, don’t even know what a harness looks like, so there are huge cultural hurdles to even getting enough of them interested, and then skilled enough to apply animal power to the complex set of situations required in the forestry operation.

That is why, in my mind, there needs to be a hybridization of some type of skyline type mechanization, preferably low tech, so that they can enact successful selective harvesting, so that it will be quickly seen as advantageous, so that there will be incentive to learn to intergate draft animal power. Some farmers in the region use water buffalo for plowing, but there are very few, or no, examples of people in this developing area who are using draft animals successfully, so the hurdles are not only numerous, but high.

Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow Blair. We’ll get started with big horses pulling small logs, an see where that leads us.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

The whip stock is made out of plastic. Similar to the plastic goads that some pullers use, but carved down to a taper, and shortened. A leather sheath is stitched onto the handle, including a cord wrapped under the sheath for finger grips. A leather loop is bound onto the end with heavy thread, and the long leather lash is attached to that. The leather lash is 1/4 inch thick by 3/8 and tapered to the end. An eyelet is slit into the end of the leather lash where a cord (String) is threaded and starting with a chain stitch of about 4 inches, a single length of about 6-8 inches extends to a small knot at the end. When this cord is waxed, as Vicki describes, it can deliver quite a sting, where ever it hits, human or bovine.

I found this type to be extremely handy as I can place the motivation exactly where I want it. I agree that the body language is the primary code for direction that animals will respond to, but when working in tight situations where I expect fairly exact response, I found this whip to be a very functional tool. The ability to put a snap on the very place on the tail head, or over the flank, or on a particular front foot is in my mind a necessary component to getting the highest response from cattle.

The pain that this type of whip can deliver is beside the point. I found that there may be times when the delivery of specific high levels of pain is appropriate, but in general it is more about getting exact with the direction. This whip can create quite a load “Snap” when whipped into the air, and that becomes a very effective way to get their attention by reminding them what it can feel like.

I can’t remember what it cost me, but once I saw one being used up there, I never even flinched at the cost because I wanted one. I will be looking into it this week.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Posted it as a calendar item.

Remember to scroll to the bottom of the main page to check out calendar listings, and then also “Calendar” in the header for more complete access to the calendar feature.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Rod, I have one that I bought from a teamster near Bridgewater NS whom I met by tracking down people in that book. I have never seen any in the states made like that. I may be able to get in touch with him if you want. I might want a new one, mine’s shorter now from a mishap.

The long leather lash has a waxed braided cord on the end, that when you get practiced, you can take the seed head of a stalk of grass. The old timers up there tell stories about sticking a match in the crack in a table and striking it to flame with the whip!!

No problem getting the cattle’s attention with one of those.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Well, not over emphasize my own point, but I really believe after years of practice that “farming”, is a bundle of land-use and animal husbandry practices that are not dependent on scale to be validated.

If you want to use those practices to make commercial, or economic profit then so be it, but I have been farming between pasture, hay, gardens, and woodland, nearly 200 acres for twenty-two years with as much emphasis on developing a functional land-base and infrastructure as any inclination toward financial profit.

I take my profit in the early morning twilight watching the ravens tumble in the sky over my barn, in the smell and feel of soil on my hands, in the bright eyes and smiling faces of my kids and wife when they are there working with me, and in the notion that I have been accruing significant assets in material, equipment, skill, and in productivity that I can pass on to those who will need that more than any money I could have saved in the bank. I keep as much of my “surplus” as possible by rolling it back into the operation. Our farmers marketing, and milk, egg, and meat sales are really only ways for us to engage with our community.

People are always saying, “but you and Lisa both make incomes from off the farm”, and that is true. So what, we still are supported in our off farm work by the on farm work we do to feed and provide for ourselves, and it is our own decision how we want to use our land as a farm. I see no reason to off-load energy and nutrients, plus my own ingenuity and physical effort, to an unappreciative public, losing money, just to say “I’m farming”.

Farming like the future mattered. I see my farm feeding five families. Not only will it feed them, but it will employ a good portion of them, and it will give them a safe place to live, play, and learn. Farming is not an economic process unless you chose it to be. As long as we perpetuate that concept we will limit the degree to which we reclaim an agricultural community, and we will continue to under-utilize and under-value our land and environment.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Community scale composting will be a great way for groups of people to recapture nutrients and energy and return them to the soil to support food production.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Yes we have had some good experiences with folks from the current program there, also.

Just for those who may care, David Birdsall is not horse logging, but is an Owner/instructor for Northeast Woodland Training, a “Game Of Logging” education provider in New Hampshire ( http://www.woodlandtraining.com/ ).
David lives in SW Vermont, and runs his families remote summer camp in the Adirondacks, as well as leading wilderness treks in Alaska from time to time.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

goodcompanion;7993 wrote:

…The agricultural systems I’ve witnessed that used highly complex traditional practices (southern france and morocco) did so simply because that was what was done. Things were done in a certain way and that was that. Most farmers could go on at great length about the “how,” but had limited ability to discuss the “why.” But those systems put food on the table. The beauty in those systems was shaped by constraint. Now some major constraint is coming our way too, so maybe we’ll also get some beauty.

I also think that we are at an end to the reflex application of agriculture. We have run the gambit from scratching the soil to grow a few grains to the mechanical production of food widgets. We are faced with the realization that growing food does work simply by repeating customs, but without thought, or understanding, it can turn into devastation and depletion. I really think that we are headed for a new cultural understanding of farming, not only because I think we need to, but because it is a logical adaptation of a failing system.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Well I didn’t mean that I thought it would happen any time soon. I do see seeds of hope though. There is a growing consciousness, and I think that it is the basis for a successful future.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Try this link
http://nationalsaanenbreeders.com/workingwethers.html

And
http://www.hoeggergoatsupply.com

This page in particular

http://hoeggergoatsupply.com/xcart/home.php?cat=21

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Probably the BIG turning point will be when prices are more dramatic, but I also know that people are beginning to understand that food is not a widget, produced by a mindless mechanical process. People are realizing that they yearn for the relationships that real food represents, to people (family who share it, and community that desires it, or produces it), to living organisms, to Earth, and to personal satisfaction from sensory experience.

There is a lot of talk about lowering energy consumption, reducing carbon foot prints, etc., but the real sea-change will occur, in my mind, when people reclaim a human relationship to food, and realize that there is only a limited number of ways to get that. A major component to that will be a revival of the agricultural community, in other words everyone in the community realizing the role they play in our food web, from the way they use their land, to the way they manage their nutrient stream, to the food products they consume.

Carl

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