Extreme Logging = Sensationlism

[Gulo]

@416Jonny 3630 wrote:

“Oooooo….look at the loggers, they’re using mules! Awwww…..how quaint!”

The same comment applies to most of the portrayals of draft animal power in my area at least, and so often perpetuated by the draft animal people themselves. The vast majority of people I know with draft horses in my area, for instance, engage them primarily in nostalgia events. Or my personal pet-peeve, the “giant hitch” – the draft worlds’ version of the monster truck rally.

Many people with teams seem to have the same headspace themselves: “this playing with horses is fun/nostalgic – but I won’t pretend there’s any modern application.”

I’d take time to see someone using a single horse to do just about anything that involves their actual real world economy – i wouldn’t cross town to see a big hitch the only purpose of which is some stunt, or another nostalgia-fest.

Not that it matters much – the headspace that includes the draft animal as a part of the antidote to where we’ve arrived, is a very different one from the headspace that sees the draft animal as a quaint step in our evolution to some supposedly higher ground. It’s an entire philosophy of life, one that I expect the guys who run heavy machinery all week and play with their draft animals only when there’s time probably don’t subscribe to. You either have it or you don’t, and it needs no defense. It’s not a place you can persuade people to go, in my experience – they either get it or they don’t.

I wonder if anyone on here feels like this, or if i’m being overly harsh.

[jac]

Know what you mean and I dont think your being overly harsh but…. I would give my eye teeth to be able to own a farm proper but cant.. so I drive road/railers at night and make hay,harrow,seed,plough and any other job I can find for my horses to do. We will soon be starting a big project at Robert Burns cottage {Scottish poet} with our horses recreating the market garden that his father had. Not farm work as such, but we make money with the horses.. I totally believe in the future of the draft horse and its modern application. When someone looks over the hedge as we make hay and say “Oh .. your doing it the old way”… i reply .. “No.. This is state of the art”.. they usually walk on with a patronising smile on their mush.. but I dont give a rats butt any more. I do what I can with the horses….
John

[mitchmaine]

hi john, i was commiserating with a fellow logger working alone roadside, wondering what the local loggers thought of his half load of logs piled roadside for the day. and all i could think putting myself in their shoes, cause i was there once, was that they might be thinking “man, wouldn’t it be great working a horse in the woods.” but being strapped to $1,000,000. worth of equipment and payments, have to make some remark about size and money to support what they do, even if they secretly wish their life was a whole lot simpler. what do you bet?????????

mitch

[jac]

Think you hit the nail bang on the head there Mitch… Those that CAN harvest a lot every day HAVE to harvest a lot every day !! Mabey never be rich but least there isnt any debt..
John

[dlskidmore]

@mitchmaine 21710 wrote:

they might be thinking “man, wouldn’t it be great working a horse in the woods.” but being strapped to $1,000,000. worth of equipment and payments, have to make some remark about size and money to support what they do

That was the very thing that got me interested in animal power. I started looking at the price of tractors. Then I started looking around at reasonable profits to expect out of that hefty investment, and came across some little paper by an extension office trying to better support their Amish constituents. It turned out, after some study, that the Amish folks were making more per acre and working fewer hours a day than the modern tractor farmer. They couldn’t work a ton of acres at the walking pace and rest break schedule of a horse team, so they never got rich, but for a small acreage it made more business sense to work horses.

[Gulo]

@mitchmaine 21710 wrote:

hi john, i was commiserating with a fellow logger working alone roadside, wondering what the local loggers thought of his half load of logs piled roadside for the day. and all i could think putting myself in their shoes, cause i was there once, was that they might be thinking “man, wouldn’t it be great working a horse in the woods.” but being strapped to $1,000,000. worth of equipment and payments, have to make some remark about size and money to support what they do, even if they secretly wish their life was a whole lot simpler. what do you bet?????????

mitch

No, you can’t use horses and expect to compete on a heavy industrial level, no question. Logging or farming or anything else. But nor should you expect to, nor on the other hand take this as a deal-breaker. You have to find, or create, a niche market for yourself. You’ll get nowhere trying to turn apples into oranges.

Easier said than done, I know. About the only way i know to do it now is CSA farming. Don’t know if horse logging pays anymore. I know in the area i was considering it, it has gone by the wayside (along with most of the rest of the economy!)

Of course, I got to thinking later, even doing “quaint” things with horses is worthwhile if that’s your way of keeping the skills alive. And JAC, sounds to me like you’re going beyond that!

[mitchmaine]

hey gulo,
i wasn’t talking about competeing with skidders. just the opposite. i was talking about the reality of being caught in “big” farming or logging where production and volume are the game, and big checks usually go to the banks and mortgage holders and your left with a weeks pay same size as the horse farmer and ten years later when your equipment is finally paid for you are the proud owner of a bunch of rusted, beat up machinery no one wants to buy.

[Gulo]

@mitchmaine 21716 wrote:

hey gulo,
i wasn’t talking about competeing with skidders. just the opposite. i was talking about the reality of being caught in “big” farming or logging where production and volume are the game, and big checks usually go to the banks and mortgage holders and your left with a weeks pay same size as the horse farmer and ten years later when your equipment is finally paid for you are the proud owner of a bunch of rusted, beat up machinery no one wants to buy.

I getcha, believe me. The whole model is a dead-end street, I believe, and will disappear as soon as cheap, abundant oil ceases to be our reality. Not that I can say I have the answer to a way out right now – I don’t. Except don’t enter the trap and if you’re in it, sell out? I dunno. Would you not then have the capital and then some to try something on a more human scale? Only speculating here.

As for the show’s portrayal of horselogging… I guess i wouldn’t put too much stock, nor angst, in how the mainstream portrays anything. They are catering to such a low common denominator. The mainstream is beyond hope, in my estimation, and what’s more, quite possibly irrelevant.

[jac]

Hi dl… we have to define rich. I am allways financialy.. how can i put this…. Skint !! but when i hitch a team and head to the field im wealthier than any man in a suit.. As Gullo said.. that kind of benchmark is going to be thing of the past when oil gets expensive….
John

[lancek]

Or The good timber runs out wich will be soon if we dont curb this thing soon! I know we are growing more now than ever before but what kind of quality other than highly managed wood lots are we growing! The north east still has pride in there woods but here in the midwest its still rape it and run !
They mow it down to 6 inch stups and then think it will grow back naturaly

[Gulo]

@lancek 21724 wrote:

Or The good timber runs out wich will be soon if we dont curb this thing soon! I know we are growing more now than ever before but what kind of quality other than highly managed wood lots are we growing! The north east still has pride in there woods but here in the midwest its still rape it and run !
They mow it down to 6 inch stups and then think it will grow back naturaly

It’s interesting that this is the same story regardless of natural commodity you’re considering. Which (among other things,) leads me to believe this system – and the issue is systemic, it is not “a problem with logging” or “a problem with agriculture” – is on its last legs.

Well, unsustainable is, after all, a terminal condition. And as at least one wise man put it, collapse is not just a problem – it’s also a solution. I suspect it is our only solution at this point. I’m in the same boat as you, Jac, and i suspect we have a better chance at coming out of the current predicament than many!

[Author]

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