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Your local TSC can special order them for you if the staff wants to look it up. I bought a set of 16″ by 7/8″ Blades just a few months ago from them

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You should have one ground rod for every joule of energy you charger has, spaced 10′ apart and connected.

You should have as many lightning rods +1 as ground rods.

The lightning arrestor/rod field should be where the charger attaches to the fence.

The ground system should at least 150′ away from the charger/lightning rod system.

Switching to a powerflex or fiberglass post will solve many issues with shorts, I glad I have. I had to walk my fence weekly repairing shorts/broken plastic insulators. Now I dont. I have had my blind horse run straight through (I was standing there when it happened) my powerflex/high tensile fence with no injury to the horse, nor to the fence because every thing could stretch and move instead of being ridged and like a knife.

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Grain for horses is terrible. In probably 90 percent of the cases out there they don’t need it. Only if you are working hard for days on end(during plowing/planting season or making lots of hay, or logging) do you need it. And even then high quality alfalpha can replace the grain.

Extra protein in cows/horses that isn’t being used has to be processed out of the body through the kidneys and liver. You can not belive the damage that high energy feed does to milk cows livers and kidneys, which is why they have an average life span of 44 months now in the “standard” dairies.

I have seen this damage as well on horses feed high energy diets that are not being used heavy every/all day.

Grass/legume mixes in a proper rotational grazing system can provide the energy needed in most cases without any inputs except lime/sulphur(to bring ph into line). Notice I said grazing, not hay, and I said proper. False nitrogens kill the soil microbiolgy and harden the ground. The agchem companies know this but once you get addicted to it it you are hooked because it takes some time for the ground to come back to “life” after being poisioned. And most people just cant wait.

God, mother nature, insert belief sytem here, intended grasses to have hooves on them. Hooved animals to be in large hurds. And the hurds are intended to eat on area down and move on letting the ground rest. Only daily rotational grazing can come close to replicationg this natural cycle.

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I am sorry but in this country or in western europe making a new horse drawn mower is not economical. Using my engineering and manufacturing back ground I thought about using rear truck axles, shortening one side and fabricating the rest. The problem is where do you get a good supply of axles, an individual can get a few from a junkyard but to manufacture them you need a constant supply so that means going to a company like dana.

Small foundries that could cast something like this are dead for the most part in this country, epa regulations forced all but the large manufactures out and even alot of them left. So if you wanted an all cast machine, you would have to make patterns(There is a lot of money right there as patterns have to be specifically designed to flow right and allow for shrinkage of molten metal. Ship them over seas, send a representive over seas to ensure quality(if you don’t you wont get good work) and have them shipped back. Port fees are outragoues for small scale items, so you have to have the capitol to cast at least a container load.

You still have to manufacture some sprag clutches, and fabricate/cast the head, bar, and general support system.

Now you have a machine that cost 4000 dollars or more in material/labor, that doesn’t take into account any profit, transportation, or marketing, so you would be north of 6000 dollars.

Don’t belive me, look at the price of a new tractor sickle bar mower, they are that expensive with less complexity as they don’t have a ground drive system.

Now who out there is going to pay 6000 dollars plus for a new mower. There will be a few I am sure, but drafters are notorious scroungers and cheapskates, even if they have money.

Sorry, but millions are not to be made.

Even the big three in horse equipment, Pioneer, I&J, and White horse are not making millions and they are selling products with more demand.

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We have a cribber, when we lived in southern california and feed hay year round , alfalfa was cheap at 8 dollars a bale and orchard grass was 22 dollars a bale(shipping cost, alfalfa was irrigated in the desert). Since alfalfa has such a high feed value they would only get 1/3 bale and would be bored. One horse would chew on anything simply to pass the time. Now that they are in indiana on pastures, the only time I caught her chewing was one week the first winter when she was standing for most of the week in the lean to because of the -20 temp and 30mph winds. That post was replaced and sheathed in metal. Jolly balls help as well.

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I would say that loans/debt make your dream very difficult, makes any type of farming difficult.

When a banker is breathing down your throat for a payment, I have seen the most decent man make rash decisions and sell out their values and beliefs

I would recommend at least getting a team and some smaller equipment while one person maintains a job. Save some money at the same time. If you can develop a customer base and come close to breaking even at that point look at income and cash flow. If its there, then both start farming full time, but I have met very very few farmers that don’t at least have a part time job unless they get a subsidy check every month, even the amish typically practice a skill or trade in addition to their farm. Such as a welding shop or farrier service or wagon shop or shoe store/farm store.

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Sorry firebrick but it doesn’t matter which god, if any, you believe in – people ARE the problem – because of our stupid brain.

Geoff, My religion doesn’t allow me to slaughter people just to reduce the population to 500 million like the Georgia guidestone suggest. I am confused, you seemed to be upset in previous threads when individuals were killing and composting unwanted bull dairy calfs? Do you think we should kill the “unwanted” population of humans?

We have figured out how to tweak the laws of nature so as to allow us to occupy all sorts of places and ecosystems that we shouldn’t be able to inhabit AND wreck the place for other life on the planet as well as for ourselves. We sure are smart ain’t we?

Don’t disagree with you there. Its evident in Africa more than anywhere. Do to drives to end hunger American and Europeans have been sending food for decades, causing a population explosion on the African continent. Now Malaria, AIDs, and many other diseases are epidemic and many are trying to send drugs find cures for these problems. I personally believe that its Gods way of dealing with either overpopulation or sinful lifestyles. I could also see someone that wasn’t religious viewing it as “nature” keeping the balance.

In this country look at New Orleans. It has always be a place of vice and death. Until DDT and building of levies/draining swamps disease was rampant with extremely high death rates. After all man did to tame “nature” then the hurricanes come along and wipe it out, and we still try to rebuild there, were we should have never in the first place.

But in any case whether the two listed above, or many other of hundreds more, my personal religion would not allow me to kill them or send/support someone else doing it on my or “natures” behalf, no matter the benefit that it may provide.

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BachelorFarmer, The main point that I am trying to communicate is that sustainability of any thing, whether it be farming, energy consumption /usage, natural resource usage is that it needs to be achievable in a realistic manner over a large percentage of the population. Technology in many ways makes that possible in time. Someday maybe solar cells will come down in price enough do to technological advances that drastically reduce the manufacture cost (energy cost) or raise the efficiency notably of each cell.

But in the here and now, we can’t focus on technical solutions that don’t realistically work when low tech ones do.

It has been said the many times that “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”

We can not delude ourselves that something that uses smaller amounts of energy or produces its own energy at the source, is better when the reality is that the manufacture of those products makes the “lifetime” energy and pollution output greater.

In reply to your previous quote of “My theory is that if we all stop burning oil we bankrupt the NWO oil barons and they have to get a real job….
“

This forum is for sustainable energy, if you are just interested in fighting the machine, then I suggest you post somewhere else. The way you are going about it you will not win as there are 6 billion others on this earth that will compete for their share of oil. The 330 million in the US are a pittance compared to the burgeoning population in Indian and China that are know just able to afford private automobiles and appliances in their home. It’s a pretty self-centered view to believe that if even a sizable population of this country would have an impact in the price of oil. There is much proof as well that the recent manipulation of oil prices was do to the speculation of worker owned mutual funds, not big petroleum companies.

Do to my religion, I don’t feel that we should practice euthanasia on 5.5 billion people on earth like the Georgia Guidestone suggest. I am more about saving money, which means I don’t have to earn as much, and therefore saving resources comes as a result, and educating people to see things in a wholistic view about energy usage instead of a “blinders on” view that politicians and some business that sell products of this type would like you to have.

As to your firewood cutting.

The buzz saw is not a bad idea to cut firewood, if you had a tractor with a pto/flat belt, it allows quick processing of small wood (under 8 inch) My father uses one to zip through slab wood waste from a saw mill.

The issues with a horse powered buzz saw is that circular saw blades take high rpms. For a gas/diesel engine that operates at a high rpm there is not much power lost, some tractors such as the old 2 cylinder john deeres had the belt pulley directly on the crankshaft so there was no loss of efficiency what so ever through changing the ratio.

With horses pulling a sweep, you have to have maybe a 250 to 1 speed increase to get the proper rpms for a buzz saw. That much gearing will loose more than likely over half of your horses output before it ever reaches the saw blade. While horses will make more than 1hp for short burst, they need a consistent load at low rates and a buzz saw is the opposite, high loads for quick burst.

You are trying to make a technological solution for a simple engineering problem and I think using the KISS principal and thinking about it in a different light will save you money in the long term without a large increase in manual labor.

First is always reduce.
Why are you using 8 to 10 cords of wood a year? Wood heat is a good renewable and sustainable resource if maintained properly, and using that much for just one house is not sustainable. Here in northern Indiana, on the plains that wind blows 20 to 30 mph all winter, I burn 2-2.5 cords. How do I do that? 1 is a high efficiency epa stove. The newer epa stoves can get nearly 70 percent efficiency out of them. The new EPA stoves don’t smoke if they have a chimney installed correctly and are run correctly. Old stoves get less than 40% and forced air wood furnaces and wood boilers get very dismal efficiency around the 20s and when they choke off the air smoke very badly, causing the risk of a chimney fire and causing politicians to pass laws banning wood burning in some areas of the country. Second, keep the heat in. That means fix drafts and insulate the hell out of it. Even if you have an old farm house, storm windows installed out side the window and plastic shrink wrap inside is a good investment, even better is double pane or triple pane windows. You don’t have to do all at once, buy one or two at a time and install yourself.

The other big saving improvement is insulation. This is your best bang for the buck. If you have under R60 in the ceiling, you need more, and cellulous which is recycled newspaper is better at blocking drafts and convection heat loss compared to the more expensive fiberglass. My mother has a newer house of 1300sqft with R28 in the ceiling and heats with Natural Gas. She resisted for years to me adding extra insulation because her builder told her that was good enough and she would not see any gains. It took 4 hours for me and my wife to blow in 600 dollars of cellulous insulation and it cut her gas bill in half usage wise and about a 1/3 monetary wise because of the high price of fuel the last two years. Much more pleasant house to be in as well, warmer in the bathroom and a corner bedroom. In 1 winter she saved paid for the insulation in energy cost.

Second
While I feel for you about being over 6’ tall, as I am 6’2”, and have bad knees from being in the Marine Corps, this problem is the easiest to fix. Hand bucking wood was rarely done on the ground. It was almost always raised onto saw bucks. Chainsawing could be done on the same. If you use a buzz saw you will have to raise the wood to the saw anyway so why do it on ground.

There is also a neat tool that I use called a timber Jack. It is a Cant with a 6 to 10 inch square steel bar welded on 90 degrees to the head. Hook the log with the cant hook and rotate 90 degrees and it lifts the log up 6 to 10 inches. Then if you have a 20 or 24 inch bar on your chainsaw you don’t have to bend over. This is my method

Third,

if you still want to use a horse sweep to power a saw, use a drag saw or sometimes called a power buck saw. A large pitman wheel made lightly out of steel or wood pulls a pitman stick attached to a large bow saw. These saws are suitable to horse power as they operate at 20 to 30 rpm instead of 500 to 600 rpm so you won’t loose half your power in gearing. They can also handle larger wood if supplied with a larger bow/buck saw and you can make it so the wood has to be lifted onto a platform just a few inches high instead of 20 to 30 inches necessary with a buzz saw(buzz saws are normally only able to handle wood smaller than 8 inches) Also the drag saw because of low rpm and the cutting teeth are pointing down instead of radially are much more safe to operate. Hitting a nail or other piece of iron unseen and imbedded in a tree will not have the catastrophic results that a buzz saw blade exploding would have, I have seen a few fellows maimed by buzz saws as a result of striking something and have heard many oldtimers talk of the one that died as a result.

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I was looking into becoming a farrier after my stint in the marine corps and before I finished my service I spent a lot of time working with a fellow that used to be a college professor at CalPoly in CA teaching the farrier trade. Because of the enviroment in SoCal he made an extremely good living but the enviroment there is different than anywhere else. Any how, other than being a close neighbor and good friend, I spent probably a good 200 hours trimming horses/learning with him and initially had every intention of pursuing the trade. Since he had one several competitions and was considered a master farrier(certified journeyman) by AFA I asked him the schools he recommended.

One was the Sierra Horseshoeing school in Bishop California. I actually visited this school and the instructors were welcoming, knowledgeable, and you had plenty of horses to learn on, although many were rank range horses. But that is part of the education to learn how to handle them.

The other two were the heartland school in Misery, I mean Missouri
and one in Oklahoma, I believe Oklahoma State but am not positive on the last one.

I moved to indiana where there is not the potential to make a living as a farrier and found that being 6’2″ is not a good trait to have bending over and picking up feet. Plus it plain scarred me to see how crippled up the fellows in there 50’s get after doing it for 30 years.

I personally don’t have much need for shoes on my horses as our indiana clay soil is not hard on their feet and I don’t do an appreciatively amount of road work. I also wont own a horse with poor feet that need shoes, so I trim my own with what I learned already and good study of horse feet anatomy and reading many books on the subject.

Most schools offer 4,8,and 12 week courses. If you just want to trim your own I would recommend a 4 week course, if you need to shoe for a living, get the 12 week course, and get AFA certified, the small cost up front will reap rewards down the road. And never undersell your work, people wont respect you for it and you will struggle in the long run.

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Carl, I do have to admit that my assessment of solar energy assumed that the majority of people do not possess the skills(even though some would like to believe they do, which goes for some professional installers) to do the installation of such systems or maintain them after the installation is completed. It also assumes that the general population will not accept the loss of convience that they have become accustomed to.

I have lived at times without modern conveniences and could live that way, however, while I have made great strides to reduce our use and consumption, I have to be a realist and realize that if I can not get my wife to give up all of our modern appliances, such as our air conditioner, and the washing machine, how can I expect the rest of the general public to do so?

Solar does make an excellent choice when sized for small loads as you mentioned and ones dwelling is more than a 1/4 mile from suitable grid power as the cost to run power to a dwelling so far is expensive.

It also can make good financial sense when used to pump water in remote locations where a pumping windmill is not suitable do to low wind velocity.

Sustainability has to do with more than a percent or two of the population, it has to be achievable for the majority of the population.

My thought is we need to stop fear mongering and quit the “not in my back yard” attitudes about nukes, large windfarms, solar hot water, and desert south west solar boilers.

I agree with you on the axe/crosscut saws. I find that a good axe and some after experience/skill I can limb a tree easier and faster than a chainsaw. I still buck with the chainsaw even though I have and use occasionally a crosscut. I simply find it hard to ever imagine that at the rate that we are still discovering oil that the 2 to 3 gallons a fuel needed to fall/buck enough trees to heat a home will not be available in even in my great, great grandkids lives.

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While I am a firm believer in reducing one consumption, and modifying habits, throwing money at a problem is not going to relieve pollution.

Some technologies are ok such as solar water heat, wind turbines in windy locations have a payback to if they are well designed/low maintenance, but others such as solar cells are terrible, for your wallet, and for the enviroment.

All of a goods is directly related to the cost of energy.

For example. Solar cells. They take large amounts of glass, silver, and copper, as well as some expensive electronics to connect to the grid or lots of lead, acid, and plastic to have a stand alone system.

The silver takes huge mining equipment to excavate and haul thousands of tons of over burden to make one ounce of silver, then it is leached out with chemicals such as arsenic, and processed, melted down and shipped to the solar cell manufacture who has to melt/cast/roll/cut the metal into a product that they can sell. Every step of the manufacture of silver also takes labor of an individual. Those individuals, especially in the US demand a wage that they can survive on and live comfortably, all which takes energy. So when you buy an hour of labor you are buying really 20 dollars of some sort of “energy” typically coal or natural gas powered.

Then they need energy to melt the sand, to produce glass, need tons of energy to mine/process/manufacture/weld the aluminum frame work, and mine/process/manufacture/weld the copper wire.

The list goes on and on for one product.

So what is the point. Some products are “cleaner” at the source, but many ignore the actually energy and pollution caused in the production or maintenance, then you are not reducing your carbon foot print.

Look at a balance sheet, if you are not saving money by switching you are not saving the enviroment. Solar panels fall in this category, so do hybrid cars. Our government and some utilities have passed some feel good legislation that robs from peter to pay paul, giving “incentives” to produce clean energy.

The honda insights gain in fuel efficiency will never offset the higher purchase cost, maintenance and battery pack replacement cost compared to say a honda fit that is an efficient comparable standard technology car.

The cost of building a treadmill for a team of horses to run a buzz saw falls into this category as well. A good stihl chainsaw of decent size will last for many years with inexpensive maintenance and the small amount of fuel it consumes is trivial. A treadmill of sufficient size to run a buzz saw will take much more materials, maintenance, and cost than the chainsaw, so what are you saving? My experience using a tractor mounted buzzsaw tells me that you wont have much success on running one with a horse power either. Maybe a pitman drive bow saw but not a buzz saw.

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Marks reply is right on the money, but I wouldn’t worry to much, from your pictures you are not bad. I try to add weight in the fall to help them through the winter. I strictly rotational graze until January(I fall stock a pasture so I am still grazing while the snow flies.) and feed loose hay in feburary-early april. Grain or some choice alfalfa is only given after a days hard work.

I have one lady down the road that owns riding horses(more pasture ornaments) that thinks I abuse my horses by working them in the heat and their two “skinny” as hers are rolly polly things. Her and her teenage daughter are borderline morbidly obese and I mentioned something to the effect that I would heed her advise when they showed self constraint in over feeding their horses and themselves. They don’t bother me any more.

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I will make a comment on Hi tensile fence. Most of its built wrong and that is why animals get injured in it. Donn setup is really close to right. It needs long runs, dont tie to corners but go around using one of the corner tubes down to the next corner to tie off. Only wood post should be corner post. Building it like barb wire fence(which most do) is a sure fire way to get a horse injured. The problem. The fence is supposed to act as a spring. It will stretch 2 percent over its length. 2 percent of 50 feet between solid post post is only 1 foot and then its a solid flesh cutter. If you have a 1000 feet in a run you have 20 feet of stretch. The flexible post allows it to stretch. The flexible fence post should be drilled for the wire going through it to allow movement.

Most people build fence with wood post and t post in between. The uninsulated t post wire clips dont allow the wire to slide through to stretch and most of the time the uninsulated wires on the wood post are staple to it, again not allowing movement. Also a horse fence should be only 4 or 5 strands, not 7 or 8 as they can get their feet tangled in them.

They also make a coated wire called hotcote that is still energized. It has a high visible white coating on it and should be used in short unstretching runs or areas such as dry lots, remember to animals the grass is always greener on the other side, especially if this side has none.

I dont know what brand of post Donn uses but we have tried and love the powerflex post. They arent fiberglass so they wont leave slivers of glass in you hands but will bend down the the ground and pop up. According to their website they are oriented wood/plastic post. Their website has a lot of good information that makes sense. I have been happy with their products.

For portable fencing you should try their geared rollers, they are the cats meow.

http://www.powerflexfence.com

[firebrick43]

I am new here on this forum but have lived some what of an “alternate” lifestyle by working with my drafts and using wood to provide the majority of my heat.

First even I considerate alternate because more than 99 percent of humans in this country consider oil the “standard”. In this PC time no one wants to be labeled different but we are.

The rest is a generalization and does not necessarily apply to those on this forum.

Second, being “green” in this country has become a new religion with Al Gore as the preacher.

Solar water heat is an excellent source of energy in most of the US but Solar electricity is not a viable form of electricity unless you live far from the grid and bringing it to your domicile would cost over 10,000-15,000. All products are made of energy and their cost reflects this energy. If it does not make financial sense then it does not make ecological sense either.

The cost of a PV system including battery maintenance far exceeds any savings you will obtain from buying the same KW’s from the grid. The production energy needed for the panels and batteries negates the free energy that you capture from the sun.

Outdoor wood boilers and wood furnaces even fit into this category. The High initial cost and there gross inefficiency do to there design negates switching off of propane/fuel oil. Especially to put up 10 to 15 cords a year most have a large wood splitter and a good sized pickup. My neighbor has a similar house to me, 1400 square ft, and bought a boiler for close to 7000 dollars, has all the associated equipment and burns 12 cords a year. I spent 700 dollars to insulate my ceiling to R60 and my crawlspace, and to make insulated plugs to fit in my unoccupied rooms windows, another 1800 for a high efficient (70 percent) wood stove and burn 2.0 to 2.5 cords here in Indiana.

Same goes towards hybrid cars, A honda Insight will never save you money during its life due to the initial cost and maintenance cost, therefore there is no energy “savings” compared to a honda fit that gets a few less MPG compared but has significantly lower maintenance cost and purchase cost.

These products are people penitence for sinning against their earth according to their new found religion. And they preach their “religion” to others using tales of apocalyptic woes.

The majority of people realize this, and do want there “religion” changed.
Same as most Christians get upset when Jehovah’s witnesses come knocking at there door.

To change their minds we cant tell them the end is near, they don’t care about anything but the hear and now.

We cant tell them that solar electric is there answer when the systems cost is well out of the reach of most who live pay check to pay check.

You have to show them and teach them that some forms of “alternate” to their oil energy methods are cost saving and not that hard to implement.

Teach them that instead up replacing their source of energy completely that we can reduce the amount we use through simple low cost methods that don’t require much change in lifestyle.

Little by little, and never as religious zealots but as compassionate neighbors.

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The rope on the gum trick is a twitch and they do make twitches that you can apply and then clip to the halter so you can use them by yourself

We have 4 horse, 2 appy’s which we do drive/farm with, a riding paint, and 1 large Belgian that we pair with the appy’s to do the work.

The other horses I have no problems with but the Belgian we bought her when she was 14. She is our most trustworthy work horse, kids can crawl around her, knows the ropes and is gental. You can do her front feet fine but her backs you cant work on for some reason. I can tilt them up to clean them but not pick them up to trim them. I have tried running the cotton ropes over her neck and letting her abuse herself, we have worked with her feet for months on end, we have put her in stocks which she is completely comfortable in until you tie her back feet, she breaks the unbreakable straps. So I do what an oldtimer suggested to me.

I watch her walk or tip up her rear foot slightly so I can see how much needs taken off.
I take a scrap of plywood and walk her until her back foot is on it. Take a cheap 1 inch wood chisel and a ballpein hammer and “chisel” off the majority of excess hoof at a ~20-25 degree angle from horizontal. I then go back and to a second angle at 75-80 degrees at the front to round off the toe. And then wearing leather gloves will take a rasp without a handle on it and touch up the sharp edges, all while her foot is on the ground. I have a small section of 2/4 scrap that I make her walk on to do her heels or I just harness her to a cart and run her on the asphalt for a couple miles and that takes care of her heel.

She will move her foot sometimes but is not vicious about working on it and I dont get beat up. Works for both of us and the results are quite acceptable.

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