Economics of Horse Logging

[Gabe Ayers]

Jim,

Man I bet it is cold to work outside there these days! It is really cold here with a crisp wind that hasn’t stopped for about three days now.

Some thoughts about conventional forester’s are: If conventional forester’s had the answer to sustainable forestry then no body would be asking the question of: what is sustainable forestry ? They would already be practicing it. Of course they have all sorts of claims about growing more timber now than in 100 years, (read dominant paradigm propaganda), but the real truth is reflected in the quality of the lumber being produced from what is being harvested and processed. The quality on a per board foot percentage on the best logs is going down. There is a lower percentage of clear lumber from butt logs today than there was 40 years ago. That information isn’t widely talked about because it would be a serious indictment of the conventional practices. I know some will say that all sites have been high graded and we are taught in forestry school that the only prescription for a previously high graded forest is even age management or clear cut to let the shade intolerant species regenerate them selves by having full sunlight on the forest floor. That in my experience is an industrially funded modern myth. But frankly I have worked at this for thirty years and personally had rather work on a previously high graded site than a previously clear cut site. Particularly if I am sawing the logs also. I know which one will yield more clear boards per log. I have worked in both woods using the same silvicultural prescription and prefer the one that didn’t start over from the ground level up responding to the last harvest treatment.

If one can get hourly rates that will pay them better that’s great. I think Tim Carroll up in Minnesota has done some of this kind of paying work for well to do landowner’s that want their woods cleaned up. I guess this means cutting pulp wood away from residual saw material. A day rate is good to if you can get a landowner that can afford to invest in there forest. In Appalachia people expect to get paid for anything that is removed from their property.

Landowners that are well educated about forestry issues always want our services and the most aware ones, with vision, will do whatever it takes to have low impact restorative forestry practiced, even if they have to pay for it themselves. It is their natural capital system, they have many good reasons to invest in making it worth more in the future.

I think an interesting thing in this discussion is that most of us work for about the same money, which is never enough.

It is never enough when the value of the restorative forestry services are not fully accounted for in the economics. We will come to a time when the value of those services is quantified and paid for by someone, most likely the landowner, maybe with some eventual subsidy from the carbon storage capacity of the forest from the public or government.

The main point is that animals are not competitive with machines on a production basis, but are far superior from the environmental basis. It is more different than apples and oranges, it is more like the difference between prey animals and predators.

The information, science and common sense observation is becoming more apparent everywhere – that we have to do things differently in the natural world. Our culture (DAP) offers the best method for our future, it is only a matter of time before we prove it and began getting paid for the “wholistic” value of our services. Wholistic being a play on the words whole and holistic.

I truly appreciate all the efforts by everyone working animals in the woods or on the farm. Even part time or partial animal power is a blessing when practiced by anyone to any degree. Thanks for sharing what you all are doing. We are not alone, although scattered somewhat – we are not alone.

[Jim Ostergard]

Jason,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Its wicked cold this morning, close to 0 degrees here on the cost and with the NW breeze not much of a day for work outside.
I agree the mainstream forestry paradigm is not so much about leaving good wood as production. When I first cut wood here it was all production, we hauled our 4′ spruce and fir to a rail car siding and had loaded it. Actually we made some money back in the 70’s. Now conventional logging is a hard show with machinery costs and operating expenses so high.
I my area now we have a somewhat more enlightened landowner coming in. they typically are not so dependent on the harvest for income as was the traditional way and the way it probably is in most cases in Appalachia. This gives us an opening for practicing a more sustainable harvest method. And, I’m thankful for that as it gives the the chance to use the hourly or day rate much more often than I was able to in the past.
It is hard to sometimes through out the apples and orange comparisons especially coming out of the resource extraction tradition (I fished commercially for 20 years in addition to working in he woods) and this forum and discussions with other loggers who use horses really helps. I recently talked with a fellow from Payuer the loader manufactures in Quebec. He said I could easily pay for the $20,000 team driven loader with increased production. My experience with one on a skidder does not bear this out. If I broaden my perspective and forget how we do it with the skidder and think only about how it would work with horses it becomes a different discussion. So something learned by listening to others. So good amount of wood was moved in this part of Maine on a scoot!
As we all grow stronger through sharing here and elsewhere we will carry these concepts to landowners and a change will (is now) occur. So its important that we keep weaving the threads.
More later, got to get some hay out.
Thanks Jason and all the other out there who are sharing.
Jim Ostergard, Peregrinator Services, Appleton, Maine

[Gabe Ayers]

I wanted to go back to something Emerald Isle Simon said about working at thinning plantations and then not getting to actually harvest the improved resources later.

If one gets paid fairly for contract thinning then that may be worth doing. We have never been able to get paid fairly under any system to work in an industrially managed monoculture planting.

In our area there are thousands of acres of eastern white pine planted on Christmas tree, nursery spacings of about 6-8 feet. These plantations are all based upon recommendations by the public forester, meaning the state forester. It is amazing that this is still frequently the recommendation of public foresters. It does provide increased carbon sequestration on marginal agricultural land and is probably better than just being abandoned agriculturally. Most of this land is abandoned pasture, which if mowed, limed and reseeded would be good grazing.

But, basically this is like pimping your land out to industry that treats the land like a prostitute. One should be suspicious of anyone offering to give you “free” seedlings for such mono culture plantings. They give the “free” seedlings because they are the only market for the eventual product. Like most situations in life there are no free lunch’s or seedlings, it is a strategy to use your land without paying much for it. These plantations are extremely difficult to thin with the trees being so close together that you can’t get them on the ground easily. We often just recommend that the land owner girdle the worst specimens reducing the basal area to a spacing that will allow the residual to mature to a saw log size, quality and value. It is sad, because most of the new landowners are lead to believe (by real estates agents, conventional foresters) that they have a timber value in these plantations, but it is only able to be harvested mechanically (clear cut) and that doesn’t meet their objective of maintaining a forested condition. So often we just have to leave them to their own decisions about how to manage this industrial planting. The plantings upon maturing to a certain point basically self thin, but the growth rate is very low and it is a slow process to restoration to a true healthy forested condition. Also single species setting are prone to infestations by insects, fungus and diseases that prey upon that particular species. I have seen entire landscapes of southern yellow pine wiped out by pine bark beetles after 35 years of growth and the landowner not being able to get them harvested or salvaged by commercial conventional methods because there were some many tracts in this condition that there weren’t even enough mechanized harvesters available to save any of the wood.

So my point is that we are best suited to developing our own niche place in the natural resource management “business” and not work for industry at all.

Once I was setting on my log arch resting the team and could see, hear and actually smell a conventional job (rubber tired skidder, clear cut) going on over on the next ridge. It was a terribly dry time and the clouds of dust were visible for miles. It brought me to the thought of the play on words of that job being and example of the “in dust drill” work that was my competition to access to the natural resources…..You may have to understand a slightly southern accent to get that joke….

Keep working where ever you can, but put a fair value on your superior services and keep looking for the best opportunity to get paid what your services are worth. When industry recognizes and rewards me for the quality of my work and pays accordingly, I’ll work for them. But that is not likely given the economics of short term returns, high capital investments, interest payments and no vision beyond the next shareholders-stockholders meeting.

[simon lenihan]

A detailed horselogging study was carried out in ireland about 13 years ago by the forestry contractors association. The aims of the study was to promote horse logging to the relevant bodys and to do a proper costing. The costing was to establish what a horse logger should be paid per tonne in commercial thinnings, no just to stay in business but to make a profit [ no one goes into business to make a loss ]. We based the study on a single horse logger with 2 horses / chainsaws / and related equipment, everything was covered, from replacement of chainsaw boots to depreciation of equipment and future purchace of horses etc. It worked out at £24 per tonne, the price horse loggers were paid that year was £13.50 in commercial thinnings. well as they say in ireland we must not be dealing with the full shilling to continue working knowing that we were working at a loss, jason is right when he says put a fair value on your superior services, but with the majority of business being run by accountants who balance the books yearly the outlook is bleak.

[Carl Russell]

@Biological Woodsman 518 wrote:

……..
The main point is that animals are not competitive with machines on a production basis, but are far superior from the environmental basis. It is more different than apples and oranges, it is more like the difference between prey animals and predators……..

This getting close. How about, it’s like the difference between machines and animals!??

In sustainable land management we need to promote the natural processes of accumulation of energy (read growth). Many people are talking about carbon sequestration, which is important. On a broader scale modern humans have yet to understand that in nature, growth is an accumulation of energy. The Earth absorbs solar energy. This energy is manifest in flora and fauna, and the inter-relationships. Even as some are consumed by others, most of the energy remains in the “community”.

Right now our global economy is based on production that is the result of mining the energy out of the relationships that make up the ecological communities. Our energy sources are all based on the destruction of molecular bonds, and the capture and use of the energy as it escapes.

In scientific terms this is described as entropy. There is an acceptance of entropic processes, as if entropy is “the rule”. Well, energy IS always moving, but in nature it is rarely moving into oblivion, rather it is often moving into a form that can be used again by another organism.

If we can see natural growth as “negentropic”, the opposite of entropy, we can see sustainable use of natural resources. Restorative forestry as Jason describes it, is just this, as are permaculture, ecological integrity, holistic resource management, and organic farming practices.

The internal combustion motor is integral to the entropic land-use method. Draft animals are integral to the “negentropic” land-use method.

“Oh you log the old fashioned way”?

Yeah right!!!

Keep up the great work. Carl

[Anonymous]

My last job in the woods was in the summer of 2006, but I thought I’d chip in a picture of how my economics looked.

The first job I ever did was about 20 MBF of big stuff. Alot of it skidded with a single mare on a scoot, and alot of it coming over 1/4 of mile across a bridge we built across a small stream. I had no baseline of how much I could produce, and agreed to $170/mbf, which wasn’t nearly enough, considering the conditions and the equipment at my disposal. I was trying to help a friend who thought she might get her oxen going at the same time (alot of extra work), and ended up working my butt off and not making much. Classic greenhorn story of getting in over your head, but I got the job done and was pretty happy in the spring to be tailing all that lumber off my brother-in-law’s Wood-Mizer. There’s no greater satisfaction than opening up those logs that you worked so hard on, as the sun starts to open up the buds in spring. Long story, loaded with good lessons in the woods, but the biggest one was that I didn’t make much money, and wasn’t going to be able to keep it up like that.

By 2006, when I had to quit (not a business decision), I was working at an hourly rate, because it was the best way for me to ensure I was being valued for the work I did, that noone else around me was doing. I charged $35/hour, which sounds ok, until you think about all the expenses and variables. I tacked on $1 for every 10 miles from home, a way to value the time and fuel costs of increased travel. I tended to move to and from the jobsite every day, since most sites were relatively close. My baseline day was 7 hours of billable time (doesn’t include all the horse time, transportation, saw maintenance, etc. which makes for 10+ hour days of course). My records show me having 150 working days/year, since I was just getting busy enough to be working in the summer some.

My hourly expenses were about $10/hr., all considered. That makes for a $25/hour wage, but with relatively few billable hours in a year. Its really important (and difficult in your first years) to do honest accounting of these expenses. Many of those biggest costs are fixed costs, so the obvious way to keep them down is to work more days, but the my reality ran into things like ecological considerations with summer logging, spring-breakup and drumming up workable jobs.

The type of jobs I did varied widely, as I was only 3 1/2 years into it and was just starting to really get my operation going smoothly and the word out. I did everything from thinning a former christmas tree plantation to encourage diversity and a more natural appearance, to more conventional management of high-value sugar maple. The only way I saw to be consistently valued was the hourly rate. I find the idea of Jason’s sharecropping scale attractive, but it would still have hurt me on some of these jobs where the timber value so low (or nonexistent) and the conditions so adverse. I was hoping to bump my rates up to $45/hour the next year, depending on a proven track record and increased demand. Don’t know if that would have flown. In the end, its a question of being able to share the knowledge with the lanowner and show them what you can do.

My least favorite part of the job was selling logs and trucking. My setup had the landowner retaining ownership of the logs, receiving the mill slips and paying for trucking. As a small operator, I was at a distinct marketing disadvantage, but I did find a couple truckers who were decent to work with. Mills, well…

The landowner owning the logs separated me from a direct interest in the value of the timber and allowed me to perform management free from pressure to high-grade. However, because many of these jobs were in severely degraded forests, I often set a ceiling to the expense to the landowner. Basically, an estimate. We would write a contract that included a stipulation, for example, that the landowner break even after sale of logs and paying my wage. Sometimes the job cost more than the value of timber, and we’d agree to a cost they could live with, and that I thought I could reach given the conditions and the timber.

All that said, for my business to continue, I needed to either increase # of days working, or raise my hourly wage.

[simon lenihan]

looked at a job this morning, 16 acres of sitka spruce, 45 years old and untouched, owner wanted a 25% thin with all the poor quality trees removed. Told owner that even though the wood was marked correctly and that his approach to worst first removal was spot on, we told him that we could not make it pay, even the machine guys would not look at this as all timber coming out would be chipwood [ £8 a tonne at the landing. This is going against the grain for us but we have to make a living. At present we are no better than the loggers that high grade cause its what we have to do to keep going.
simon lenihan

[Carl Russell]

Woodland owners need to understand that timber resources are financial assets that increase in value when cultivated to improve growth rate and quality. To think that they can just get a return from the development of such an asset without investment is ridiculous. There have to be forestry operations that cost more than they return in the process of improving a timber stand. Don’t feel bad about needing to make money. If we all work for nothing, there is no guarantee that the forest will be managed any better. Sell your services for what they cost, and don’t be afraid to tell forestland owners the real costs of growing timber. Carl

[Dave Camire]

Thought I would chime in on this. Just finishing up a job cleaning up blowdowns, mainly Pine and Hemlock, landowner keeping all the wood and having it milled for personal use. Over the past year have cut and twitched @ 170mbf with single Haflinger (tractor with farmi winch where needed). When I origanally looked at the work to be performed I told the landowner the only way to figure cost is price epr day. I was able to charge $325/day regardless of skidding with horse, tractor or cutting a mess created by Mother Nature. Given the current state of fuel costs and prices being paid for low quality wood logging with animal power is looking more and more promising every day. I have usd a base day figure of $325 for cutting, twitching and skid road/landing development. This price is for 8 hours on site, I am trying to limit my travel to 60 miles or less and am concentrating on lots under 20 acres. Given my geographical area I tend to have more lots for recreational use and management for forest health than large tracts for future multiple harvests. For me finding a niche of providing low impact, environmentally friendly harvesting is the facet people are willing to “spend” money on.

[Gabe Ayers]

Many of the marginally successful folks that log with horses as the extractive power do other things that are forestry related. I say marginally because I don’t know anyone getting rich out here working with animals in the woods. I do know a few that are actually making a modest living at it. All of them are doing more than just logging or selling raw logs or contract logging. They are value adding, wildcrafting, consulting, teaching and just about anything to make a buck without destroying their environment. This is why we called the folks we train Biological Woodsmen. They are not competing with machines to extract logs from the forest. That would lead to the John Henry syndrome. They are practicing a whole forest management, that includes identifying and collecting edible mushrooms, botanicals, and selling them. Most have some sort of relationship with primary processing or sawmilling which adds considerable value to the material. Our approach is that if we just sell raw logs we get a raw deal. Yet we all sell plenty of raw logs because it is not possible (so far) to value add every piece we bring out in the course of practicing restorative forestry. Of course we all sell firewood when the market is there. Some folks collect special forest products such as, Ginseng, witch hazel, black cohosh, wild sweet potatoes, nursery stock, pine cones. We process some fencing boards from low grade oak and sell them locally. We sell black locust for fence post locally. Many use their horses in other applications such as wagon rides, carriage rides, weddings, parades and such that pay a little extra on the side. They are diversified by necessity.

I think there is more potential to teach the skills of working with animals in the woods everywhere. People will pay for that educational opportunity on a regional community based method. Charge accordingly. It would seem that the development of special forest products will be a growing part of making a living as a natural forestry practitioner. This is not easy in any aspect of generating income from sustainable practices.

The reason the unsustainable practices are prevalent is because they are short term profit oriented and don’t include the whole cost of doing the work.
Whole cost would include the overall impact on the ecosystem and environmental quality of every site. Not just the minimum BMP’s but the preservation and protection of the forest as an intact ecosystem that provides services that are free to the public and not paid for in the conventional sense from the services of harvesting timber.

The time is quickly coming when this whole forest management approach will be better rewarded. The time is now for some that are working with landowner’s that have a vision of the future forested conditions to be improved economically and protected ecologically. It may not be quick enough for some of us, but change is sure. The value of the natural appearance of the forest is much greater for smaller landowners with nice woodlots than ever in history. We can develop the value of our services to be what we need to make a living for providing superior active management. It doesn’t matter if it is an innovative hourly rate, sliding scale sharecrop split, value adding approach or sustainable forest management services of any type.

It is also important to recognize that many households include multiple income generation by the family members. Just like many small farmers, the wife often has a job that includes a benefits package, insurance, retirement and the normal safety net provided in this modern society.

There is no doubt that the work of being sustainable is marginal at best. That is not our fault, but a problem inherent to the modern economic system that hides cost of doing business veiled in the ecological ignorance of the general public. Global warming and increased energy cost will help us demand the increased cost and value of our services.

Interestingly enough as I type this -the national news presents a segment on “Extreme Solutions” to the increased energy cost that included a fellow making hay with his mules and claiming he saved $70.00 a day. It didn’t mention the collateral benefits of less pollution, independence and human dignity, etc., ….but they are there…..

There are developments that give hope. The CSA in an example from farming.
We use the same approach in CSF (consumer supported forestry) where the end user is connected with the source of their forest products by being brought into the woods to see the sourcing of their goods. This will have to be developed individually on a community basis, because the big green certification programs (FSC) are laden with middle management cost that makes the entire approach an even more extractive force on the natural resources. There is only one source and that is the natural world and it becomes a re-source when it is removed from that natural world and moved toward the re-tail market.

So hold on to and continue to enhance your cultural skills of modern animal power and vision for the improved forest that results from good management. Your culture is valuable although not justly rewarded in most cases. It makes sense that it is the hard way, because it is hard to be sensitive.

Carl is right. The landowner that benefits most from good management needs to understand that there is no free lunch or cheap services to provide – sustainable practices. Those practices have a cost attached that will yield a greater reward as time goes on and we learn more about the value of our ecological systems.

This may be understood by the joke about how to tell who the real leaders are in life? They are the ones with arrows sticking out of them from all directions. I am sure there are readers of this that know what it means.

So keep setting the economics up to pay what you think your services are worth. This is forging new views of man’s place in the natural world and our skills are priceless given that no body else is offering anything near the quality of services we can provide for a forest landowner. Get publicity based on the novelty, the environment, the curiosity, whatever reasons and use it to establish a network of opportunities to work and then refine your client base to the ones that go along with your approach. That is what we are calling a new value system of “Ecological Capitalism”. This is were the value of services is based upon a whole costing view of what is actually happening in the natural world. Work with landowner’s willing to invest in their own forested assets, the response to the one’s that don’t may be “next”. That may seem arrogant and not an option to everyone, particularly those just starting up. There is more work out there to do than we can get done.

We are blessed in the new world to have a great resource base. That resource is under constant attack, with human presence leading the way and we have to provide a low impact alternative. One would think that the old world that Simon works in would understand the value of sensitive services and pay whatever it takes to get those services from the people that actually provide them. Apparently even the old world power structure takes the natural world for granted and continues to be extractive without regard to ecology or the people that provide superior services.

There is no excuse for the depletion of our ability to feed, cloth and shelter ourselves. Every one on this forum is far more important than they realize. It is shameful that this work is not better supported by the government or the economy itself. So we have to redefine ourselves to increase the value assigned to superior services. It is economically marginal at the moment for sure. But that doesn’t dismiss or diminish the true worth that we should earn through our efforts.

It leads us to flying under the radar and operating as cheaply as possible in many ways. It encourages our inclusion of sharing within our community of interest and demonstrating to the community at large.

This is a great thread and hopefully will be a continuing part of this forum. These are just some thoughts on the subject. I know I am still learning from and inspired by all of you.

Keep up the good work folks. Make the landowner’s pay for quality services, the forest is already doing it’s part when given a chance.

[simon lenihan]

I know what jason is saying in regards to horseloggers diversifying, portable sawmills, training courses, wagon rides what ever makes a buck. I have seen it all before a logger would be struggling making ends meat in the wood and would end up investing in a portable sawmill. A sawmill could set the logger back several thousand all this without the security of long term orders. We work commercially usually 6 days a week, week in week out and alot of folk will say we are blinkered in our approach. we stick with it because we love it like all the good folk on this forum and we are always hoping that things will changefor the better. The only way it is going to change is if the people in power like the green party and other government organizations see the benifits of animal power, and then subsidize those commited to making this a better place to work and live.
simon

[Gabe Ayers]

First, I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting anyone invest in a portable band sawmill. I have one and don’t use it enough to pay for it, particularly if it were new and costly. I got mine from the long list of folks that buy them with great expectations, run it for a while and burn out on the work or become discouraged from the lack of work. I simply don’t like saw mill work, never have. It is boring. I would rather watch a tom cat gnaw on a marble than stand beside a sawmill all day.

So, when we do have a sure market for lumber we hire or sharecrop that work out with folks that do like running a band sawmill. We have a fellow down here that will saw for .25 cents a board foot or $250.00 per thousand board feet and wait until I sell the material to be paid. That is what I am suggesting a horse logger do if he has a market for wet lumber. Some of the products I mention usually are sold wet or green.

Sometimes we have orders through our DRAFTWOOD Forest Products program and we process to the finished product to be installed by the builder or homeowner. This is usually done through collaboration with an architect. That requires kiln drying and processing that is costly, but again available locally without our owning the infastructure. So we just require 1/2 down with the order and that sometimes will cover the up front cost of processing and I get the landowner to wait for their share for the logs or stumpage. It is also appropriate that one have plenty of lead time to produce the goods. I always love that phrase “just in time”. Just in time for what? I suggest “just in time” for the forest to be protected during the sourcing of the goods. I don’t think any horse logger can own the inventory and absorb the harvesting, stumpage and processing cost while waiting for a market.
Does this make sense?

Another thing I wanted to mention that we have done lately is Poplar Bark Siding. Google “poplar bark siding“. For those of you in the NE you may be surprised at this product. It is easily done with a chainsaw and a spud or even an ax or shovel. We just rip it down the skid or dirty side and then cut in around the log in 24 inch increments and peel it off, carefully uncurl it and stack it flat, with opposing fissure wise and haul it to the market. The market in our case is in North Carolina which is a bit of a drive (125 miles), but for the price and the ability to haul considerable square footage in a pickup truck, it is worth. It sells for around 1.50-2.00 per square foot wholesale. This means the bark is sometimes worth more than the prime number one log in many cases. Of course we still sell the slimy logs if we can get them loaded without them slipping off the forks, grapples or truck. It is only good stuff if the bark is clear of defects that create a hole when it is removed. It is graded based upon thickness, cleanliness and uniformity. The price varies according to demand and supply….surprise surprise….

Just thought I would share that in case there were horse loggers out there that had a market reasonably close and weren’t aware of this value adding approach to tulip poplar. Do a search in your region and hurry up because the bark is getting tighter every day here in the central Appalachians. It is a springtime only thing.

Hope this helps someone out there….

Note: when you skid with a log arch there is usually only one face that gets dirty. Band mill operators like that, as well as bark siding buyers.

For the forests,

[Carl Russell]

I am an example of what Jason refers to as more than just a horse logger, but not because I can’t make ends meet in the woods. I personally have so many interests, and find myself consumed with my own land-use enterprises that I practice a lifestyle that I saw all around me when I was growing up, that of a self-employed person who works for himself first, and works out in many different capacities. However, I find this strategy not so much necessary, as preferable to the culturally prescribed alternative of a specialized career.

In terms of horselogging economics, and forest improvement, I think that all of the factors that Jason includes in the equation are valuable and important, but I see more and more landowners thinking about forestland purely in terms of financial forest assets. We are in for a difficult time for convincing people that there are ecological, cultural, as well as financial benefits to timber harvest, with or without horses.

We are up against years of forestry practices that have focused entirely on timber harvest to recover financial assets, with little regard to what it takes to ensure the same in the future, let alone ecological/environmental values. Pure and simply, for years I have conducted forest improvement timber harvests, by charging a reasonable rate, and focusing on improving growing stock with minimal impact on ecological integrity. That said, I have affected such a small number of acres, and minds, that I am still seen as an anomaly.

I have let so many landowners go because of exactly the situation that Simon describes. I would have charged by the hour for non-commercial thinning, and they would have realized an incredible increase in growth rate and quality, but they were only capable of focusing on the short-term.

If I hadn’t been working so hard over the last ten years to develop an enterprise where Lisa and I can concentrate on earning from our own land, I would find it very discouraging to be out there knocking my head against the wall of current forestry mentality.

When it will happen, I can’t say. I have been thinking it would happen for nearly thirty years now. I think many of us see the truth, but holding on financially while trying to maintain a working philosophy that we know makes sense is extremely difficult. As fuel prices rise, and food prices rise, and costs of living in general rise, our natural power and sustainable/renewable/restorative land-use practices will increase in value, but who can forecast how long we will have to endure. This is why it is so important to diversify our income streams and simplify our lifestyles, so we can hold on to our skills and equipment and knowledge.

I don’t question anyone who needs to take on work that may not meet their finest ideals. We all have to do what we need to do. At least clear-cutting or high-grading using horses is presenting a practical example of sustainable power. Every little bit helps. Carl

[Gabe Ayers]

We definitely don’t support clear cutting or high grading with horses or animal power.

The Amish clear cut on a pro rated per thousand basis in Kentucky and it is disgraceful and diminishes the value of animal power in a real way to anyone trying to practice good forestry. They simply can’t get other work so they do what they have to in order to make a living. I will quit logging before I do that. Yet it is true that animal power would create less damage than machines in that application, but it is not something I personally would do, unless there was absolutely not other option to working my animals.

We have had one fellow come through our training and then go out and high grade, claiming he had trained with me. This is just fuel to dismiss the value of animal powered forestry by conventional forestry interest and muddies the water for landowner’s that are considering their forest management options. This lead me to write an editorial article defining Biological Woodsmen as being far more than just horse loggers. This fellow finally got a mechanized skidder and got rid of his horses. We are glad for that.

Meanwhile we continue to develop local decentralized wood processing on a community basis. That may be the wave of the future, but there are lots of details to be worked out and a lot of capital investment that we are seeking from others interested in sustainable development other than the actual ground level workers. More on that later.

Hopefully we will continue to share this information and through this sharing, have the information available for anyone seeking a different direction in the care of the natural world.

[mstacy]

Jason,

There is an interesting letter to the editor in the autumn 2008 edition of Northern Woodlands magazine from a gentleman named Jim Birkemeier (http://www.TimberGrowers.com).

His business is based on capturing the full value of his wood. As the forest landowner he is marketing high value retail products (installed hardwood flooring from timber that he logs, saws, and dries). The figure that really caught my eye is the claim of resource efficiency (“one good job for every 40 acres of timber”). This is truly remarkable if it passes muster. Forty acres of forest surely can’t keep an individual gainfully employed in perpetuity if only a small portion of the ultimate value is captured locally (logging).

The concepts would seem like a perfect complement to logging with draft animals.

-Matt Stacy

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