Bobsled at work

[mink]

very nice pictures, if carl wouldnt have said they were from yesterday one could think they were from the early 1900’s

[near horse]

WHat were you using for a lens and filter on your camera? Or, with digital cameras do you do all that stuff w/ photoshop?

Sepiatone makes those pics look old – nice.

[Carl Russell]

I was just fooling around with I-photo. After I took the pix I went to the print shop to make some xerox copies and saw an old painting of a farmer feeding stock from a sleigh with a team on a day just like yesterday, so I thought it would look cool to make them look old timey.

Here are a few more from today.

[Carl Russell]

Loading the next load…..

[Gabe Ayers]

Well, work continues on the pine job with the bobsled. I certainly have learned a thing or two about this tool as time has gone on. The efficiency of the bob is in the details – loading, chaining, unloading, etc. I have abandoned the metal ramps in favor of much longer hardwood poles which work far better. Now I can load almost all the sixteen foot logs myself, even the larger ones. The horses are becoming more confident in getting the larger loads started. Carl loaned me a spreader bar with adjustable holes for the fasteners for the jockey yokes. Now I put my stronger gelding closer to the load and the balkier one further out, and it seems to making all the difference! Conditions have become somewhat more challenging with deepening snow, but it has covered the wet spots nicely and the bob glides along well. Mark Cowdrey come out and helped me out for a day this week, which was great, and I invite anyone else close by to come and see the bob and work. It really is a fun tool to use in the woods. We have sent one load and will have another ready by the end of next week.

[Does’ Leap]

Carl and Brad, thanks for the pictures and the info. I am starting to get into areas of my woods that are a good ways from my landing and I am considering a scoot and/or bobsled for the job. Brad, how much pine are you cutting and skidding (bobing?) on an average day and about how far is it to your landing?

Thanks.

[Rick Alger]

Yes, excellent photos.

[Carl Russell]

Rick Alger;24056 wrote:

Yes, excellent photos.

😀

Ever have a professional photographer come with you into the woods??? Ever notice how many horse head shots, and broad landscapes with no useful information?

There obviously is an aesthetic that deserves capture, but I specifically tried to get shots that could tell the working story. I hope to get some more next week with frost lining the sides of those beasts…. Brrr.

Carl

[Gabe Ayers]

George-
How much wood per day? Good question! I have scaled a couple of sled loads and they were 5-600 bf. My horses are still getting adjusted to moving the loaded bob so I have not really freighted it yet. I think I can 7-800 bf each load and hope to be up to that soon. So far, on most full days I have brought down 2 loads, and 3 on a couple of days. I hope to cut, skid, and move at least 1000 bf each full day, and more than that is a bonus. But, I have had a number of days that produced less than 1000 bf at the landing. Right now, I am losing the most time in loading and unloading and breaking new skid trails through snow and deadfall. As I mentioned in the earlier post, I am gaining efficiency with more experience and trial and error (sometimes lots of error). The total distance with the bob is, I would guess, 1/8-1/4 of a mile. Carl might have a closer figure for you. It seems to me that once the bob is loaded and the team can move it you can go quite a distance relatively easily, but like most horse drawn tools you would reach a point were the horses might not be the best tool for the job…

[Does’ Leap]

I hear you about the trial and error. I have only used my scoot for one day and I found loading medium sized firewood a challange. Too bad I don’t have a video of my peavee work, you all could have had a good laugh.

Is that footage with two guys working or just yourself? It would be interesting to know at what distance one moves from logging arch to a bob sled / scoot and finally to a forwarder.

George

[mitchmaine]

george,
is there anywhere handy that you could cobble up a log brow to help you load your scoot? or sleds? looks to me like there is only three flat spots in the whole state, and two of them were made with a shovel. two men were always used to roll logs. its not you and your peavey, there’s just a missing man.

mitch

[Does’ Leap]

Mitch, unfortunately I generally work along in the woods although I think I could rouse Kristan for some log loading once in a while. I also have a good friend that bought his first team of horses. We have talked about logging one day a week at each others’ places. I like the camaraderie and safety of working with someone else in the woods, but it is much easier to harness and go compared with coordinating times etc.

I received some money from NRCS to renovate some old logging roads. When I have the excavator up here this summer I plan to have him make some brows in strategic locations.

Did I hear/read that you live in aroostook county? I went to school in Orono for a couple of years and Kristan and I spent a lot of time in Ashland at her aunt and uncle’s home – great country.

George

[Carl Russell]

Not to be disrespectful, but a few loads and a few thousand feet is not enough experience to really get a feel for rolling logs on or off of sleds. The difficulties should lead to increased understanding of the little tricks that can make a huge difference. It requires a certain amount of resolve to get past the uncomfortable stage.

This also feeds for me into the discussion about the amount of wood gotten out in one day.

In this day and age we are definitely conditioned to think about production supporting the operation. As if the operation has some assumed authority and the production unit must live up to it.

It is one of my pet peeves that when using animal-power we need to think of the production capabilities first. Recognizing the limitations, and crafting the expectations to fit the reality of the situation.

I won’t pretend to be able to evaluate other’s budgets, but the beauty of using animals is the low cost. If there are other factors that increase personal need for income, they must be evaluated in terms of the capability of the horse, not the other way around.

Using hand tools such a peaveys falls into the same category. The inherent value of these systems is that the work can get done for very little outlay of cash. It is like apples and oranges to then superimpose personal modern expenditures onto these systems. They should be considered in their own lights.

When I started using horses in the woods, I had several years experience working with machinery. It was very difficult for me to justify the seemingly absurd amount of time it took me to get out a thousand board feet. I had the luxury of starting at a point in my life when I had very little invested, and therefore I chose to restrict my financial expenditures to the actual amount of income from my production.

I also found that efficiency is very different from proficiency, and that as I found those aspects of the work that I could improve on by shear craftiness, I could alter my impression of the limitations. Things like understanding the landscape, and knowing the tool I was using, so that I found the best place to work from, and using the tool that best utilized the energy from my horses, or finding the balance points of heavy objects so that I let physical factors influence how much energy I actually had to expend myself.

As far as the inefficiencies of loading and unloading the sled, one only has to look at the differential energy expended by the animals between dragging 150-200 bf 1500 feet and then walking back, versus 300-500 bf on a sled. The human may work less, but the animals, will be using much more energy. Not to mention the added expense of handling the resulting pile of material on the landing, which in so many cases demands another machine. Sleds, both scoot and bob, provide inherent advantages to assist in unloading…. facilitated by the way in which logs are oriented at the landing to the access from the harvesting area.

I have been watching Brad, and he is learning fast. He is pulling wood on the sled about 1500 feet, and skidding logs to the sled from within 2-300 feet. He did not choose the easiest place to start the job with the equipment he is using. I expect that the trees he will be cutting this week, and the chance he will be using will provide improved facility.

I have always worked alone in the woods, with a few limited exceptions. I have rarely exceeded an average of 1000 bf per day. This is not a lot of money on today’s income market place. I chose my commitment to using horses over my need to expand my debt-load. I also decided to integrate other efficiencies like raising my own food, building my own home, and taking care of my aging mother as a way of buying into the current farm.

This is all to say, I appreciate the misgivings that people express about this kind of work, but they should not see my adherence to them as evidence that somehow I have been able to make a lot of money at it. I make income in many different ways, one of which is piling up logs from forestry projects. I have found over the years that I can effectively harvest timber for very little expense, and using the bobsled and peavey is just one way.

I have put as much as 900 bf on a bobsled and hauled it 1/2 mile downhill. I would haul 500 bf that far or more, depending on terrain, long before I will consider buying a tractor. And if I was going to hire a forwarder again I would need to see 4 choppers and at least 2 teams pulling wood to it, which again adds levels of complication……

I have shod the horses, am cleaning harness today, and hope to get them out on the sled this week. Perhaps even on Brad’s job….

Carl

[Does’ Leap]

Carl, thanks for your insights. Perhaps you misread my self-deprecating comments about the peavee and scoot as writing off these tools. It is not the tool, but the operator. I have a lot of learning to do and I am committed to learning it.

In terms of the amount of wood gotten in one day, a 1000 foot day is a great accomplishment for me. If I implied I could do better, I can’t. It was meant to give me a sense of the distance the bobsled becomes more effective than an arch. If I were not making any money logging with my horses, I would still do it b/c I enjoy it and I am not depending on the income derived from it. That said, I am interested in applying the best tool for a given working situation. Part of that equation is wood on the landing at a given distance. Part of it is also learning something new and the enjoyment of the experience. For instance, I was struck by how quiet the scoot was compared with my logging arch (chains clanking on steel).

I have been twitching firewood with a single horse for the past two days and plan on getting the scoot out tomorrow.

George

[Carl Russell]

George et al., My comments were actually more general than directed at anyone in particular, although they came out more as a rambling manifesto than I had intended. 😮

Carl

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