Horses help pull Vermont into the future

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Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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  • March 6, 2011 at 2:40 pm #42513
    Carl Russell
    Moderator

    Claude Desmaris has been pulling cable with his horses for years. Now that he is pulling fiber-optics people are paying attention.

    Link to news story

    Carl

    March 6, 2011 at 5:05 pm #66164
    Does’ Leap
    Participant

    Carl:

    Thanks for posting that. I met Claude at the first Animal Powered Field Days. I was just starting off with horses and he was happy to answer lots of questions. He is a wealth of knowledge and an extremely nice fellow.

    George

    March 6, 2011 at 6:26 pm #66167
    mink
    Participant

    do you need to belong to facebook to access the story? all i get is the headline. mink

    March 6, 2011 at 8:39 pm #66166
    OldKat
    Participant

    @mink 25488 wrote:

    do you need to belong to facebook to access the story? all i get is the headline. mink

    It worked for me, and I am NOT a Facebook member.

    Nice story, by the way. Positive PR for the draft animals / teamsters.

    March 6, 2011 at 10:23 pm #66162
    Gabe Ayers
    Keymaster

    Well I hope Claude is smarter than me, because I did this on a project for fiber optic a few years back (19) and really cheated myself. I priced it by the day instead of by the foot (.25 per ft.) and basically made the contractors thousands of dollars according the the guy from Wisconsin that hired me…after the fact of course. He let me make my own deal but mislead me by saying it would take 10 days…when it only two three to do seven miles complete. If he had paid what he had budgeted by the foot – to pull the strand, cable and wrapper, it would have been worth thousands. We went through some rough company and everyone knows how much fun right of ways are with random debris.

    Hope everyone makes as much as they can with their horses, particularly when they are providing a superior service.

    Jason

    March 7, 2011 at 3:05 pm #66165
    LStone
    Participant

    Carl thanks for posting this. I have many times thought that draft animals could provide this type of service to utility companies especially in remote power / communications line construction. Communication networks have been my bread and butter for some thirty years. Be it mostly inside and private. I guess I wasn’t far from the mark after all. I would like to meet Mr Desmaris and see if there is any possibility of him making suggestions or giving some advice on helping to start me out doing this with contacts in NH. I am kinda impressed with myself for my own thoughts on this subject and I think I am going to start taking myself more seriously from now on.

    March 7, 2011 at 3:32 pm #66163
    Carl Russell
    Moderator

    Larry, I’m sure Claude would be glad to speak with you. He has been doing this for many years, and is a wealth of info, and probably contacts as well. At this point I won’t post his contact publicly, but I will send it to you PM.

    Carl

    March 10, 2011 at 12:08 am #66168
    mink
    Participant

    the story was on channel 5 news tonite. the news lady did a fine job on the story. one of the linemen commented that people going by and seeing them would ask if they were still in the 1800’s. snow was so deep the guy leading the horse had snowshoes on. mink

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