Hello every one from Taylor Johnson

[TaylorJohnson]

Hello every one just wanted to say hi and to post some pics of some of what I have been doing. I am back on line for now at least and hope to stay that way. My loader is working well but the wood markets are not ( I guess I dont have to tell you all about that) but I am making it . It has been lots of hours and lots of days with out a day off for ,,,, well sence there was snow to my wast . It is a little better now , not a lot but a little. I have been wourking manly pine because the hard wood is so low. Here are a few pics of one of my jobs and some of my euipment. I wish that I had a pic of the horses hooked to the loader , I will have to get one. Well take care every one and I look forward to reading the board ( I have a lot to read to get current) and to visiting with you all again . Taylor Johnson

[simon lenihan]

Taylor, nice pics, is that a farmer brown logging arch?.
simon lenihan

[TaylorJohnson]

Thanks Simon, as far as the arch goes it was built by a guy named Todd Eggler He is out of MN. It sure is a nice one it is , I made a trade with him to get it ( money is tight so a trade worked well ). The tires on the arch are Semi truck tires it gives it a good lift on a load. The loader is a nokka loader on a cart that was set up for a tractor but converted to be pulled by horses from some friends of mine that own a saw mill to the south of me. It works well , it has a fifth wheel type hitch on it so it turns very sharp , a Honda 24HP vtwin engine powers the hydraulics . It looks a little bit cobbled together but it is well made these boys are very talented fabricators. You should see the ones that they built to replace this on , they are pulled buy 5 to 6 a breast and have big diesel motors on them to power there hydraulics. Mine has rubber tires but there new ones have steel wheels. The best part about mine is how I can move it . I just put the stabilizers down pull the pin on the ball that is attached to the poll and tires , they drop down and I pull it out from under the hitch walk it to the back and get on my loader put the tires, poll , and axles in the back . Then I can back my truck up under the hitch lower it down on the ball put the pin in it and drive to the next job . It is heavy so I drive slow but it pulls good . If I had a bigger truck I could pull it 55MPH with out a problem but I drive about 30 with it on. If you left the front tires on it , removed the poll and put an implement tong on it you could pull it with a car if you really wanted to it really pulls nice. Taylor Johnson

[jen judkins]

Nice to hear from you, Taylor! Your horses look fit and happy…glad you landed with both feet.

[TaylorJohnson]

Thanks Jeniffer it has been a little tough but not to bad like I said lots of stretches with know days off and all but that just makes you really appreciate the time you do get off. My wife is great about it all she brings the kids out to the wood with a meal so I can spend time with every one as well. My little girl loves to help me with the horses ( feeding watering and what not ) and once in a wile I let her drive them around the landing , with me helping of coarse. When these wood markets turn around I wont know what to do with my self. right now a good part of the wood I cut and skid I am making about $65 per cord on, I sure with it were more but that is what I can sell so that is what i am cutting.
The horses are doing great , that team in the pics is Mark left side and Dan right side . I have had Mark for some time now and he is really a good horse. When I got him he was 4 and had never been in the woods but had worked in the fields some but you could tell he was a smart one . It took him just a little time and he was a hard one to beat. If I could figure out how to do it I would keep Mark in the house with me I love that horse. Dan I just got this spring to replace an old horse that I retired named Sam. Sam is a hole other story. Like Mark Dan had never been in the woods but seemed to have a good mind so I bought him. I was not as easy with Dan because he was older than Mark was like by 7 or 8 years. We had some scary moments will he was getting use to things but nothing to bad. Now he is great, pulls like crazy and follows me any where. When I got him it was like he did not know what I was doing if I gave him affection he must not have gotten a lot but now he eats it up .
They are the best team I have owned at least in the way they step out together and the way they pull a hard load together. I will try and get some more pics up later these are just what I could put on here right now. Taylor Johnson

[Scott G]

Taylor,
Great to hear from you and nice pics. I’ll still be giving you a call one of these days. Nice job on the little Nokka forwarding trailer. A fairly common constant I have noticed for folks doing well is combining a forwarder, either a real one or a horse-drawn version, with ground skidding. It is a great take off on a motor/manual CTL harvesting system and can really increase your payloads for the long haul, especially with small roundwood. Another great thing I like about forwarders is the ability to load directly on to setout trailers. Landing is minimal size and you take out one motion of handling wood. One of the best pieces of advice I got from an old sage logger who was one of my mentors years ago was “everytime you handle wood you lose money” it is very true and unless it involves value adding or cutting for grade you try to minimalize it as much as possible. Integrating forwarders into your operation allows you to do that. I believe Simon is a recent convert to forwarders as well. Although I have come full circle back to horses I still honestly believe hydraulics are a gift from God….
I had a little NorHydro forwarding trailer for awhile when I started scaling back and it did pretty good for its size. A Majaco or Payeur horse drawn fifth wheel are definitely in my future once the funds and volume justify it. “Modern horse logging” is modern by several measures; chainsaws and hydraulics are two of those. Same superior result is achieved just with more effiency and less wear & tear on the operator.

Take care,
Scott

[TaylorJohnson]

Hey Scott good to hear from you as well. I do agree with you about the use of a forwarder it makes things much easier. We use to have a lot of equipment as well , any were from 9 to 12 , 3 to 5 man crews working at a time . We ran valmet, Timber Jack , Franklin forwarders most of the time . We had John Deer , Timber Jack , and Tree Farmer Poll Skidders , John Deer processors with fabtec heads and one small case possessor with a hann head. I would not give you $5.00 for the hole lot if I had to keep it all and work it all,, just to find the men to run that much equipment and the effort it takes to get them there and keep them out of jail and to keep them from killing each other was always a huge task ( at least the young guys it was ) . But like you said a god forwarding system is I think very important to modern horse logging. Before I got mine I was hand pilling all my wood , the wood I could not lift was pilled by block and tackle . Just a real slow process and very tough work. Last Fall I was hand loading a truck sometimes twice a day plus pilling limbs and tops plus unloading the truck . On those days I was handling around 27000lb and that is just wood that got put on a truck and off a truck not brush and the bigger logs that I had to deal with. That my friend will make you fell like falling though the door at night , sometimes my arms would feel numb or something. I can pile that with my loader like nothing and in know time , heck those days I talked about before I got my loader were days I started hand loading in the dark of morning and would be unloading as it was getting dark or when it was dark at night. You said you thought hydraulics were a God sent ,, well i don’t know if they all are but mine sure was :). Taylor Johnson

[Carl Russell]

Hi Taylor, great to see you back on the site. Great pics, thanks for sharing them with us.

Although I also marvel at the functionality of motorized equipment like loaders and forwarders, I have held off ever buying any machines to compliment my animal-powered operation. I always felt that added expense, added cost to the operation, and required even more production. It also seems to me to put more pressure on the animal portion of the operation to increase its financial production, because the machinery takes more to run, and more to maintain, so the margin associated with the operation of the machine is much less variable. The work that you do with the machine can only be done with the machine, and because you’re paying for it you have to run it, which takes away from time working the animals, which bring the more potential because of their low operational cost.

It does take more time and muscle, but I have also found ways to get creative on the landing, using embankment to roll logs down, etc. I also use bobsled and scoot as very inexpensive and functional ways to move larger loads, twitching logs from the stump to a main haul road, and then loading the sled for the main haul.

I appreciate everything you guys are saying, and if I could forecast the next ten years with a better level of certainty, I might consider getting a forwarder. I would then have to probably hire someone to run the thing full time, which would also probably mean having another team and chopper in the woods as well……

Maybe I could get some apprentices???:rolleyes:

Carl

[TaylorJohnson]

Hey Carl glad to be back on here ,
I have the same thoughts as you in the fact that a forwarder is a hard thing to work into an animal powered biz due to the cost of it and the amount of production it takes to justify having one . I would say with a lot of them ( at least the way I operate) it would not pay to buy a knew one. I happened to get a good deal on this one so I moved and got it. It is very good on fuel and I use it a lot like you use a scoot. I can say this my most enjoyable part of my work is when that thing is parked and I am using my arch or ground skidding logs out. I am thankful for it but I do like using the horses more than running it , there I times I miss pilling logs with Mark ( one of my geldings) because it was a way to really work close with my horse . At the end of a day of that kind of work you are close with your animal but I still get that in other work that I do just not for that particular part of the work. I really think it goes buy the region you work in and the type of work you do but up here I think i would ideally like a little smaller loader cart. One that I could hook up to my arch and pull. For me the big logs were not the problem it was the smaller stuff that I had to handle all the time , the 10” to 4” type stuff. So if I had a smaller loader with a smaller motor on it that got even better gas to cords I would be better off. I cant complain with what I do have but as you work something you can always think of some way to improve it or the system I should say. Carl I had been having the poorest luck the last year or so before I got that loader with finding good landing spots for wood , like you said something with a bank or hill or what ever. It was up hills both ways and 40 miles to get there if you know what I mean 😀 . I think in this part of the country for this to work well there has to be a balance with man , animal , and machine and I think that is the order to . I would say that time wise I am about Man and Animal 75% to 80% the rest is with the loader ( I am putting the chain sawing in with the man part of the equation even though it is a man using a machine) with a smaller loader I could see that balance evening out a bit more.
I have some ideas about some small type scoots that you would not have to unload that would be fast , a friend and I are working on building one here. It could end up being very fast I think. I am not a real good typer so I will wait to try and explain them ( I am setting here eating with my almost 2 year old boy malling me a bit trying to type this ,, that is how it goes for me I guess ) but I would like to see what you all think of it and to see if you have heard of it or not. Well I will talk to you soon and once again glad to be back. Taylor Johnson

[Rick Alger]

Carl, I too like to keep it simple. But to get a trucker these days it usually means a mid-mount trailer and a load in the order of 8 mbf of logs or 35 tons of pulp. You need to sort and concentrate this kind of volume, or the trucker will go elsewhere.

I use a farm tractor with forks.

[Carl Russell]

I’m still lucky enough to get truckers wit 3x and pup who still know how to work on a log landing. I usually have products sorted, but I also make sure the landowner pays the trucking, so they get the money they deserve without cutting into my pay. I don’t tolerate cowboys who can’t slow down when loading and leave the landing looking worse than when they came.

These things may be changing. In the next ten years the logging industry may be much different, and I may just be marketing lumber directly from the woodlot to the builder.

Carl

[TaylorJohnson]

I have a problem with truckers to , same thing center mount loaders are most common up here but there are some truck and pups but even they don’t like to sort wood to much. The guy that trucks for me now is 76 years old and he is the best around I would say. He is slow but he does a good job and he is use to horses from back in the the day. One time I asked him how many years he had been hauling logs , He sat there a bit and started to say a number figure a couple of times then he stooped and said well put it this way as long as there has been a truck that would haul logs i have been hauling them. His name is Roy and He started hauling logs when he was 14 years old. I will be sick when he quits not just because he is a good trucker but because I will miss are visits on the landing. Taylor Johnson

[Scott G]

Ahhh trucking, the bain of every logger’s existence. I think all of us have been to the point of considering our own hauling to provide consistency but have always wisened up to the realities (and inevitable headaches). I have had many truckers in the past but was fortunate to run across a couple that turned out as decent as one can expect for a truckers “time schedule” (or lack thereof) and have one now that I deal with exclusively.

Taylor’s story of his tried and true trucking friend brings memories of one of the most colorful characters I’ve ever dealt with. “Crazy Jim” was in his late seventies, drove an extremely old “freight shaker” (Freightliner) that pulled an old converted WWII vintage trailer built to haul tanks that he used for shortwood. He was prompt, would haul out of this God forsaken hole that no other truckers would touch, inexpensive, and an affable chap. He would show up at he landing, if he wasn’t sleeping there overnight, open the door upon which time a good amount of Old Mil cans would hit the ground and announce his presence. Often at this time one of his current “companions” would emerge from the sleeper cab…

During our time together he: 1)almost ran over me on a blind corner on a Forest Service road, 2) caused me to extinguish a wildland blaze that he started by “blowing out” a flat with ether, and 3) almost managed to pickle an entire 16 cord load on a tight corner that had the road blocked for two hours much to the local residents dismay.

You ask why did I hang on to him? Answer, because he was the only one crazy enough to haul out of this hole, and he was a very affable chap. One of those sincere types of people you just can’t stay mad at for long…

He didn’t have a CDL and ran under the cover of being agricultural. I use to have to write “invoices” for the product he hauled so that if he ever got stopped by CDOT, which thank God he never did, that he could claim he wasn’t hauling for hire. Several other gyppo loggers used him as well. Unfortunately we lost him to cancer a couple of years ago.

Ahhh, the memories (and gastric distress) 😀

-Scott

[Carl Russell]

I recently had to switch truckers. Fred had been trucking logs for thirty years. He bought his first truck out of high school. Always drove a Kenworth with a Hood loader. Took his work very seriously. Charged high rates, but would sort, and do whatever was needed to do his job. He just got sick of the downward spiral this industry is in. High production, low quality. He ran a 3x straight job. Probably the last one in the area. He really like to haul logs off my job because I cut to grade, and he was proud to roll into a mill with a load of good logs.

I have switched now to Jacques. He is my age, and I used to work with him at a mill yard 25 years ago. The first trucker to haul off my landing was his dad, in 1983. Rosie(Rosario) couldn’t speak more than a few words of English. “Good Firewood”. Another throw back to the days when truckers worked with the loggers. He’d stack wood out of the way, not so much for us, but so that he wouldn’t have to do the work twice. Jacques is cut from the same cloth. Patient, knows his truck, and his work.

This got me thinking of the old characters.

Ray “The Blade” (Razor), was a legendary trucker in our neck of the woods. One of the only men to drive a loaded log truck over Lincoln Gap. The first summer I worked in the woods to make my living, we were cutting on USFS GMNF cutting SUM and WHA overstory from a shelterwood. There were some awesome logs in there. Old Ray’zor would freight that truck and he’d hit 3rd gear before he passed the end of our landing on his way out. He liked us “College Boys” because we cut the best logs coming into the mill that summer, and he got to haul them.

Or Maurice Thompson, old as dirt, and drove his last truck, and old IH 3x for over twenty years. He wore bottle bottom glasses, but he could recognize you at a glance, and always wove. He used to scale and buy logs off the landing, then sell them to the mill. He kept 5-6 loggers in business this way. His son drove him to his grave riding in the casket in the back of that truck.

These days, the drivers are young hurried, hourly employees of guys that are trying to keep big contracts with operations that move lots and lots of material. They are generally friendly, and most have had some upbringing in the woods, but things are definitely different than they used to be.

Oh, I miss the old days. I feel like an old timer.

Carl

[Gabe Ayers]

Trucking is another remarkable difference regionally.

We don’t have a self loading tri-axle with a pulp trailer in every village in Appalachia. In fact I don’t think there are but a couple within 100 miles of our place, and they both belong to the mills. Just about everybody down here that is a small scale “gatewood” supplier of logs from NIPF’s (private land) has an old straight truck (single rear axle) that was pretty much worn out before they bought it. Of the half dozen of us working through HHFF training programs here in southwest Virginia, most are operating trucks that are older than they are.

Some do have drivers other than themselves, such as wives and girlfriends that of course have other “jobs”, like homemaking, parenting,school bus driving and anything they can do to generate income for the family household. Often the loads are delivered to the mills around the time requirements of their real jobs.

The choice of doing it this way was not a choice. We have no other way to move sawlogs or pulpwood. It is a pain in the butt to say the least. It is an expense that is probably overall cheaper that a pro rated hauling situation, but it is not a great savings. It requires that one have their own loading capacity of some sort, knuckleboom, bobcat, farm tractor or parbuckle setting.

Yet the transportation does present interesting stories of independence among the practitioners. They do get to haul logs when they can’t work in the woods and of course the trucks to other jobs for he families too. Some are flatbed dumps (ours) which of course can haul road to a haul road or landing, hay from the hay fields and many have gooseneck balls on the back for hauling the horse trailer to and from the jobs. When value adding or on site sawing is employed the trucks haul slabs to firewood customers and long length firewood out of what would have to be pulp without a firewood market. The best thing about that is that the haul is usually much shorter and to a neighbor, often elderly or low income, or both. We haul sawdust back to the barn for bedding and gravel for our own driveways, lumber to customers, beams to timber framers and the occasional odd job, like tractors and balers to a free piece of hay to make or the big Christmas tree to a large
hotel in the city, which is quite a site going downtown with a 35 foot tall white pine on the back of a straight truck.

One practitioners is a avid and skilled shade tree mechanic and has an old 67 model Chevy C60 that has had every piece of it replaced except the actual cab (it just has brazed panels and bondo). This is the justification for the junk trucks sitting on the back side of the place providing parts for these determined woodsmen. A common site is an old school bus that provides parts and a convenient shed for other stuff important to independent operation. This old chevy is several years older than it’s owner/operator – since he wasn’t born until 1972.

Then there is a certain community based interdependence that trucking cultivates. The relationship with local truckers like up north and out west, translates here to having a long term relationship with the local garage and junk yard. This is the route I personally take, since there are family businesses that have keep a truck under me for decades now. They do the repairs, upkeep, maintenance and modifications necessary as well as always have another truck available when the old one disintegrates beyond function on core levels like frames, engines and cabs failing. Buying and relying on neighbors for transportation needs is a community based approach to operation. It may not be as easy as making a phone call to the “trucker”, but it is what we have to do here to keep products moving, even at the level of production that a modern animal powered forestry business generates.

In Va. there is a status of exemption from tags and registration called “Farm Use”. This is to help farmers that produce for the public consumption the chance to operate as cheaply as possible. In recent economic times many Farm Use trucks are seen at the sawmills and as long as the wood is coming from a “leased land” situation – read sharecrop arrangement – it is as legal as hauling cabbage, tomatoes or sweet corn to the market. The trucks still have to pass DOT roadside inspection but most load them modestly and the gubment boys usually let them roll on and don’t bother them to much.

So we can talk truckers in Appalachia, but is mostly talking about ourselves… members of our families or extended families.
As we age, driving the truck is physically easier than working in the woods, but I prefer the latter, we all have to do what we can to make it work…

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