[Theloggerswife]

Congratulations! There is nothing like a new baby in the family. My 2 1/2 year old boy keeps us all on our toes! Good luck to you all and get some sleep when you can from now on…..:)

[Theloggerswife]

We once purchased a “Dud Stud” to breed our highland cattle. After a year with no calves, he made great hamburger.

[Theloggerswife]

Itsaunders, I understand your insurance frustrations, because I get the same response from the kitchen table from my husband! He isn’t a horse logger, which probably the first reason I shouldn’t have posted. I have the horses for a hobby.

My two cents on the liability coverage. It covers bodily injury and property damage you are deemed negligent for. Does a forester, mill representative, environmentalist, hunter, snowmobiler, newspaper/magazine reporter or salesperson ever enter onto the property that you are currently logging? Is there a possiblity that you could mistakenly cut beyond the boundaries designed for your contract? Could you be reponsible for a fire that burns additional forest land? Do you load or unload logs from an owned or non-owned vehicle? If you answered NO to all the questions then there probably isn’t a need for the coverage. [HTML]Stepping off my insurance stool.[/HTML]

We have a contract completed before each and every job start. The current project is for an attorney in Brandon, VT. He laughed when we asked for a signed contract his exact words were “Contracts are not worth the paper they are written on.” We didn’t walk way from this project because of that remark….because he is right. We have done three other logging projects for him and he likes my husbands work.

So it seems your are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

[Theloggerswife]

I agree with Carl there is more then one way to operate a business. Integrity and knowledge of what you are doing and who you are doing it for are an essential part. My husband operated as a sole proprietor for years with no problems. Even when he took on another logger we operated that way for years. I am the one how initiated the LLC. I have seen too much ugliness come from good intentions.

So just be knowledgeable about what could happen and make your decision from there. Maybe there is no assets to protect? Contact your Secretary of State and see if they will send you the forms to form an LLC….I know Vermont does this.

I won’t even get on the issue of insurance….I am an insurance nerd by profession.

[Theloggerswife]

My husband set up a LLC several years ago. He had someone logging with him at the time and he made the other person a 2% owner of the logging operation. Both of them signed an officer exclusion form for workers compensation and it was file with the state of Vermont. The LLC protected our personal assets and the officer exclusion made it offcial that workers compensation was offered, but both declined the coverage. When the two were logging together a K-1 was prepared by the accountant at the end of the year for tax report of income or loss to prepare our personal income taxes.

Fast forward several years….the 2% owner decides to go into the carpentry business and my husband stays logging. My husband is now 100% owner of the LLC. We no longer need the K-1 because the logging business is fully owned by my husband and we just prepare the schedule C for taxes at the end of the year.

You can form a LLC by yourself ~ we had an attorney do all the paperwork. Talk to your insurance agent about the insurance issues. Attorneys often do not know everything about the insurance industry-we get calls from attorneys to explain insurance coverages all the time!

Clear as mud…right?

[Theloggerswife]

Jennifer,

Since pigs are carnivores, maybe the horses think that they are the pigs next dinner???

Missy

[Theloggerswife]

Purchase a decent fencer that gives off a good charge. We use three strands of high tencel wire. This keeps in our draft horses and 20 plus highland cattle. You can use the poly tape or rope, but you need a decent charge going through it. Our one fencer puts off a hot, hot charge and all animals respect it and it charges all 70 acres of fence on our farm.

We purchased our fencer from a neighbor who installs ag fences for a living. Not cheap, but it will gives you years of worry free fencing.

[Theloggerswife]

I think anyone looking for some bull calves this is the time to get them. My friend told us that he shipped a bull calf to the sales two weeks ago and got a check for $1.90 after commission and trucking expenses!

[Theloggerswife]

My husband has been worried sick over the closing of mill and markets in Vermont. He is a one man operation and very passionate about his work. He is lucky he has a job and a job that he likes….but the markets are terrible. He has work ahead of him for about a year, but with the markets the way they are he is telling the landowners that they should hold off unless the property is in the Land Use Program and needs to be cut.

The extreme fuel prices of last year have people in our area thinking about alternative heating…wood. I don’t think people are going to “trust” the fuel industry for years after the prices that we have seen in the recent past. This action will keep my husband in the woods producing firewood if nothing else.

I am sure we will weather the storm. We are lucky enough that our over-head is low enough with the logging equipment and with my income we will get by….hopefully this too shall pass!

[Theloggerswife]

but if you click on the GMDHA Advertisement shown above there is a team listed in the classifieds section. There is a couple teams listed in the Vermont Agriview also.

[Theloggerswife]

Jen,

Maybe you have already seen this, but it was on the local news the other night. My 9 year old daughter thought it was totally awesome…her two favorite sports horses and skiing combined! She thinks that we need to try it out with the draft horses now~

click on this link to see the news cast:
http://www.wcax.com/Global/category.asp?C=142185&nav=menu183_9

Missy

[Theloggerswife]

I have a two year old boy that will not let the forecart leave the hitching post without him on the seat. He will sit on the forecart and watch me hitch the horses just to make sure he is not going to be left behind. When we get back in the yard, my husband will take him off the cart while I take the cart/harnesses off. When Jacob leaves the cart willingly the horses are fine, when he is crying putting and up a fuss the horses want to see him, so they fidget until they can see him. I always thought it was my imagination, but my husband has noticed the same behavior with the horses.

One of my Belgians cannot leave my son’s hat alone. Jacob comes into the barn with me frequently. We grain/hay the horses and head out through the run-in part of the barn to check if the river is still open for the horses to drink from. That horse will stop eating and pull Jacob’s hat off every time. The horse then picks up his head so Jacob cannot reach the hat to get it back. Jacob proceeds to cry and jump up to get the hat from the horse. I swear the horse loves the reaction from the two year old. The horse has NEVER touched my hat. The horse will even follow Jacob running from him in the pasture to get the hat. The horse doesn’t try to eat the hat, he just sits there with the hat in his mouth….very funny to me, but Jacob may start to have nightmares about this!!!

[Theloggerswife]

Though some days I feel it would be a good trade, I think my husband would say the feeling is mutual. Like when I just recently informed him that we will be adding chickens to the farm mix of animals this spring. He maybe a logger, but it is taking him a long time to warm up to the farm animal scene!!!

I did notice that there hasn’t been one response from one man on this thread….Hhhhuuummm???

[Theloggerswife]

Carl, it takes moments like that to keep us moving along and keep doing what we do….

I tried attaching a photo (hope it works) that I took last Saturday when we went out to feed the cows. It was snowing softly and the brook was babbling in the background. Farming is time consuming, but definitely a labor of love for me. It is very gratifying to see the kids get excited about a new born calf or jumping on the forecart to go for a ride.

The barn is my escape from my “day job”. After I put the kids to bed I go out the barn and the silence is GOLDEN! Then there has been that moon for the past few nights that just makes you stop and reflect on life itself….

[Theloggerswife]

[HTML]why is it so often I keep hearing this? why are always women the ones that get started, find out and try and then have to convince their husbands to give alternatives a thought……[/HTML]

In my case, my husband was brought up with sidewalks that wrapped around his neighborhood. I was the oldest of three girls on a poor dairy farm in Vermont which in my father’s eyes equaled “free labor”. So large animals have always been a part of my life. My husband is not afraid of large animals, but he does not embrace them either. He will “help” me with them, but it doesn’t go beyond that.

After reading the responses to my statement, I decided to have a discussion with my husband about the whole draft power thing. To my surprise he has already spoken with the forester that he deals with, about putting his operation on a “horse logging project”. We will have to call upon an area teamster to help us and hopefully use him and his horses on the job. According to the forester, there are some people who are about to lose their land use status due to non-compliance and these people would embrace the idea of horse loggers. Nothing written in stone yet…but a small step forward for my diesel, skidder operating, loving husband.

So, I would have to say that apparently Hell does freeze over!!! Because this is the first response I received about joining him in the woods with the horses!

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