A Re-newed Appreciation For Working Animals

[Carl Russell]

Recently I acquired a 1964 JD 1010 crawler dozer to use in the woods improving trails to increase functionality of my horse-logging enterprise. Although I grew up driving tractors, and have at time worked in the woods with dozers and skidders, I have worked almost exclusively with draft animals for 25 years. Over the last couple of weeks I have spent more time on the seat of my crawler than I have been in the seat of any machine over the last ten years. It has given me some time to gain a perspective on using animals that I rarely have access to.

There are many reasons why I work with animals, mostly based in my philosophy about nature, life, and art. The kind of work I am doing with the crawler is not the kind of work I can do with animals, but at the same time I have been using the animals on these trails for years without mechanical improvement. I guess I had this assumption that the machine by itself would give me some advantage to the sites that I was lacking with the horses.

All the miles I have walked, the hand labor, and the physical stress have never caused the kind of stiffness and sore muscles I feel when I get off that machine. I know now why so many of my friends feel so old and tired. I have worked animals in so many situations on uneven and steep ground, but never have I felt as unstable as I do at times on the crawler.

It is truly inspiring as I try to carefully maneuver obstacles with the machine that I barely even consider when driving horses. Animals certainly have limitations, but riding on the crawler has helped me reassure myself that using horses gives me more capability in more natural situations.

Don’t get me wrong, the crawler is definitely a game changer. Not having to work across steep slopes, or bumping over stumps, or just having a trail without humps and hollows will certainly increase productivity, but I am going to be spending as little time as possible in that seat.

Carl

[mitchmaine]

danger, danger carl. its an insidious machine sitting there waiting to take over your life. first its pushing up the log pile, then its twitching out that big oak log you’ve been worring about, then its everything. i’m trying to be funny, of course, but i did the same thing and got run over with machinery.
looking back, i think i never made as much money with the horses, but i can show how at any particular time, i would have kept as much money because of lack of machine costs.
there was an old saying about running a crawler. you bolt a coffee can to the cowling and paint a stripe on the tracks of the dozer and each time you see the paint stripe go by, you throw a quarter in the coffee can so you can have enough money in the spring when you have to repin and bush the tracks.
i’m not worried about you cause i think you know all this and like your horses enough to win the battle, but thought it should be said. good luck with your machine, mitch

[goodcompanion]

I spent lots of expensive time running heavy equipment for my rice project. I have to agree with Carl, operating it is strangely stressful on the body. There is a lot of force lurching around in a way that is very hard to tune to physically. Unlike riding a horse or being on board a boat at sea, it’s weirdly enervating.

The same work I did could have been done with a big gang of men and some teams but, being where we are as a culture, easier to write some big checks and go to town with rented equipment.

[Carl Russell]

I hear ya Mitch….. but I purposely bough an old machine with little frills. It has a manual tilt blade, and the winch is junk so I probably won’t be able to use it to do much logging. I didn’t want to pay a lot, so I wouldn’t be compelled to make it pay for itself….. In 2 weeks I have done enough trail work to pay off what I paid for it, so it can sit and watch me log with the horses most of the time…….. The truth is I may end up pushing up the log pile from time to time though, and I do plan on having it on the job to dress up trails as I work, but there is no threat of me starting to log with machinery any time soon.

Carl

[jac]

I have a 59 Fordson and I make it a point to find ways of using the horses and leave the tractor standing.. so far moving big round bales and powing the hay chopper is all it does.. would never sell her tho cauz you just never know when you will need it..One thing I will add about driving machines is that when Im up in that combine with the GPS on , I can admire the scenery and also the ammount of wildlife there is in Oxfordshire… but would swap it all for a day with my horses on my International type E binder…
John

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