Carrying Gear While Logging With a Single Horse?

[Does’ Leap]

Does anyone have in innovative way of carrying a saw while logging with a single horse (or rather, having the horse carry it) without using another tool like a stone boat?

George

[mitchmaine]

stoneboats great, george. i have a box screwed down on top with an ax and a peavey, two saws, gas and oil, a pail with a scrench, file wedges and a hammer in it and a bale of hay. i hang a pulphook on the hames to carry a saw or gas into the woods and leave the rest in the yard. works for me.
murphys law: where ever you are, some tool ain’t. forgotten twitch chain or something. i leave alot of stuff in the woods under a brushpiloe, if i can remember which brushpile it is.
no new ideas. i like a stoneboat pretty much.
mitch

[Tim Harrigan]

I am with Mitch on this one. I guess I could pack tools out but a peavey and saw and such are just too awkward to pack. I have 6 stake pockets bolted down around the edges of my stone boat and I use bungy cords to lash my tools down and leave enough room for me. I skid a lot of wood out on the stone boat anyway so it can’t much simpler than that. And I work with cattle I would have to be pretty deliberate in setting them up for packing in most cases.

[Carl Russell]

If your hames are long enough above the collar you can hang a lot of things there. I often tie loops of bailing twine around the handles of fuel jugs, and even on my saw. Some horses don’t like all the stuff bouncing around, so I have found that if the saw is hung on the off side, with the trigger handle over the hame and the bar tucked under the front trace (with scabbard obviously) it can ride there without too much bouncing.

I also used to have a small tool box that I lugged up in the woods and would leave all my tools in it, just bringing the fuel jugs back at night. In those days (20+ years ago, when I only worked with a single) I had a single-horse bobsled that I would bind my tool box onto when I was moving into a new area, then work from there like Mitch describes.

I have also used grain bags tied to the hames as sacks to hold smaller items like hand tools, lunch, etc…..tied hay bags and grain there too. Sometimes the horse can look pretty top heavy.

I also hang the peavey with the hook in the rein ring and the handle tucked into a side strap…..

Good luck, Carl

[Jim Ostergard]

I use my small single scoot sometimes to lug stuff. I have a plywood platform with stake sides (Picture somewhere in my gallery on here although I am hauling fitted wood to the house in it) and it works well. When two choppers are going to lug every thing in it really makes sense. In the British horse loggers newsletter there is a picture of an even smaller thing they call a pick up. Looks like it has the platform fastened solid so is not really a baby scoot, with a box to sit on and small sides on the back to hold stuff. Bet it could be built with much narrower runners and kept pretty light.
Jim Ostergard

[Scott G]

I swear hames were meant for hanging stuff. I predominantly use a single so I’m with you on this one. With nylon webbing loops or baling twine you can pretty much hang anything off of a hames as long as it is guarded if its sharp or doesn’t flop and bang around too much. I carry my saw and lead my horse into the unit. Fuel, water, jacket, pack, etc… can all hang off the hames if it is easier for you. My backgound is with pack horses in the backcountry so I’m not hesitant to throw something on Dobbin. Since it is dead weight though, you need to balance it side-to-side.

The reality is I’m not usually working far from the main road/trail since I’m using a horse. If it was far I probably wouldn’t be there. Short distance makes it conducive to going in with saw gear, doing my felling, and then going back to get the horse.

[Does’ Leap]

Thanks for the responses. I have a steel head for a stone boat along with some 6/4 ash. Perhaps I should move that project forward on the “to do” list. In the meantime I will try to make do hanging stuff off the hames. I especially like Carl’s I idea of tucking the saw under the front trace. I currently hang a pack (with wedges, 6 lb hammer, water, first aid etc), pulp hook and 20′ chain off the hames but couldn’t figure out a good way to carry my saw. It will be quite a site with me atop my horse heading out to the woods with all the gear.

George

[Scott G]

George,
I hook all of my chains, set of tongs, sometimes peavey, etc to my grab hook on the single tree and skid it back into the cut unit. There are more than enough attachment places to hang, drag, or carry whatever I need back into the woods with me. I wear a wedge pouch/belt that has whatever saw tools or felling wedges/gear other than an axe or peavey that I would need. Really the only other stuff that goes back with me is personal gear in a pack (layers, T.P., first aid, & lunch), drinking water, saw fuel/oil, rigging, and an axe and peavey. Saw goes over my shoulder and lead rope goes in the other hand…

With the optimum maximum twitch distance being a 100 yards and rarely exceeding 200 or so I’m not exactly dissapearing into the backcountry. The truck is usually only a few minutes away for me. When I get to a point where I’m doing more forwarding most of the gear will be brought in on the machine/trailer/sled.

Working by myself; felling, limbing, and bucking as well as swamping out skid trails easily takes 2/3 of my time with the remainder used for skidding. That means that Dobbin is often back at the trailer/landing entertaining himself with a haybag or something else for a good chunk of the time.

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