[mitchmaine]

john(jac), i think i (my wife, penny)may have posted a photo of that mower forecart i mentioned in equipment section of photo gallery. thanks, mitch

[mitchmaine]

we made up a ground driven forecart out of a mc9 mower a dozen years ago. it wasn’t my idea. it works well. strip off everything, and attach a 20 tooth sprocket to the pitman shaft, and build a tail shaft paralell on bearings over the pole with a 50 tooth sprocket on front and a six spline pto coupling on its end. done. the pitman shaft turns 28 times to one revolution of the drive wheel, 26 on a regular gear. and is reduced by 2.5 with the chain and sprockets. it turned a two basket tedder easily in any kind of hay with a team, and now with three horses, does the same with a four. and we also rake with a 9′ rotary rake and two horses can handle that. i’d send you a photo, but that may be beyond my capabiliies.

[mitchmaine]

rob and carl, don’t know if this is what your talking about, but years ago when common ground fair was at litchfield fairgrounds, they built a demonstration small building to house the animal scales. popple laid up in mortar walls with a stickbuilt roof. looked pretty slick. but it didn’t last. might have been the popple. 16″ walls, should have been easy to heat if it had been closed in.

[mitchmaine]

hey john, changing my mind about this weather thing. i twitch my wood in the morning when its cold, and team it out to the landing in the afternoon. it was 40 degrees this afternoon and the scoot road was glazed hard and smooth just like the luge run at the olympics. we head out, put the horses on automatic pilot and sit back and enjoy the ride. life is good.

[mitchmaine]

Couldn’t sleep this morning, so I got up, pulled on my boots and went down to the barn to check the horses. All’s well. Noticed it was three am and 33 degrees out. Almost too warm for a sap run in the third week of February. We’ve been sugaring some time now and keeping a journal for 21 years of it. We’ve never tapped in February. Last year, we tapped on March 5, and it was minus 13 degrees with two and a half feet of frozen snow that you could run on top of. Last summer it started raining in the end of May and didn’t stop until mid-August. We got 29” of rain. Did all our haying in September. Turned out ok, ‘cause hay’s worth a fortune and we have a barn full. The point is things come and things go but you could always count on being able to predict the weather. I think that’s changing too.

[mitchmaine]

red maple, mark. cut it saturday. it’s fairly close to our sugarbush. it’s this years barometer. good luck.

[mitchmaine]

hey rick, don’t know where your from but i wonder if this “problem” covers more geography than i realize. thirty years ago (i try not to be one of the back in the days guys), a one ton truck was a legitimate truckload of four foot pulp, or a thousand feet of logs. the trucks get bigger each year, leaving hosses further behind each year. no one wants to handle eight foot wood anymore. it seems to be treelength and you deal with the tops. soon it will be chipwood only. i can see it coming. i have wood blowing down and rotting in my woodlot faster than i can cut it cause i can’t sell it. and wood is moving off this road six trucks a day in chip vans. really ****** me off.
carl, great ring countin’ crew. wonder what their future holds? hoping things change for the better. mitch

[mitchmaine]

hey carl, wondering if you could share some of the economics about your days work with us? i’m not asking how much money you made, but rather how you made it? the reason i’m asking is i had an oak similar to yours though not as large. it scaled 230′ for a 16′ butt log (or first cut anyway) and 115′ for a 10′ 2nd log and a 115′ 12′ top log. not great wood and down a while. so i got it out and chose to cut it for firewood.(should have done it in the woodlot, would have made the job alot easier). i could have gotten about $350 per thousand or $160. for logs or $80. for 2/3 cord green hardwood. if i had tried to sell the logs, some trucker would swing in, pick up 3 logs, charge me full trucking, and give me $80. which i could use to buy firewood and probably get maple instead of oak. see where i’m going? what do you do with a half a truckload of wood? it works good on paper until you have to actually sell you wood. any thoughts?

[mitchmaine]

we hang buckets only (650 -700), so we wait til the last gun before tapping to avoid drying up. generally its the first of march. i’ve been watching this fresh maple stump in the woodlot for sap, but it’s dry in spite of 40 degree days lately. i’m sure roadside trees are running today. seems like we are in for a little snow tonight and cold weather for the next week or so. but keep us posted on what you are up to and i’ll try and do the same.

[mitchmaine]

the amish like a horse with a little kick. they are usualy still going at the end of the day. anyway, how are you feeling? six weeks to heal up from an appendix? they must have beat you up pretty bad. hope you are well. best wishes, mitch

[mitchmaine]

i don’t think your supposed to start plowing before you start sugaring. who knows? maybe i’m already late for sugaring. darn. i got caught one fall plowing in october with a freeze-up. inch and a half of frozen sod flying straight up three feet off the plowshare and breaking off in mid air and falling in a heap. nasty job. we quit and the next day it warmed up and we finished. but i won’t forget that. in the spring it thaws from the top down and you’ll think its fine but 3″ down it’s pure ice and can’t be broken. theres a time for everything.

[mitchmaine]

hey richard, we once had a jd single bottom trailer plow that we pulled from a forecart. it didn’t do too bad a job. it was hard to set the depth without running up on the point of the plow. the horses instead of pulling the plow (point and share), were pulling the forecart that was pulling the plow. thats when it starts getting complicated. i like a horsedrawn sulky plow myself, but many do pretty good work with trailer plows. it starts to get quite long ( horses, forecart, plows ) and you can loose your headland. but they are easier to find, and easier to repair and replace points.

[mitchmaine]

carl, you rule! good job.

[mitchmaine]

carl, you ain’t doin’ this alone, are ya? it got me to thinking. we have been slowly eliminating help by machine in all corners of work. fishing boats, farms, logging. one by one we keep replacing help with machines. now that we are thinking about doing things oldway we have to remember a logging crew 80 years ago had 9 men to a team. choppers, swampers, rollers on and off. your job was to drive, feed and clean your animals. teamsters never touched wood. i’m still trying to do it alone. you too? get some help if you need it. thats a big stick of wood. good luck with her. mitch

[mitchmaine]

carl, ouch. the miracle is i got the pictures on my dial-up computer, but i see what you mean. did you scale them? the old rule of thumb was 600′ to the cord, and the mill bought green hardwood for 5100 lb. per cord. if your butt log is 300′ and it ouight to be that, that’d be half a cord or 3/4 ton? is that log bigger than that? sure looks big. good luck, mitch

[Author]

Posts