How about fire wood with horses

[Scott G]

@Joel 11254 wrote:

Good luck on having the landowner fork out $ for TSI. The feds do have cost share available. Depends on how much one can take dealing with the sheep brains that administer the programs.

Joel,
I guess we are just fortunate down here. Most projects currently have a priority for fuels reduction and/or bark beetle sanitation/salvage. Once that door has been cracked open I can convince most landowners to look at forest management from a “big picture” perspective that addresses all concerns and results in a more esthetically pleasing and ecologically functioning forest. All landowners are not knocking down my door by any stretch of the imagination; but there is more than enough work to go around and I turn down significantly more work than I take on.

It is all service contract work. If there is marketable material at the landing I may buy it back from them, at landing rates, since they payed for the harvesting.

I do buy stumpage occasionally or perform “goods for services” where I trade the product for the work. It has to be some really nice material, however. This model only works when management is occurring for the forest’s sake and not purely for product. It is always a “low-grade” proposition.

[Gabe Ayers]

I will try to attach a photo of the non fossil fuel using wood splitter demonstrated at SDAD. We have one here at Ridgewind Farm for demonstrating now too. I hope to find a better photo as some of the kind folks send CD’s to us from their cameras.
It is manufactured by Athens Enterprises in Liberty, Ky. 606-787-0266 The Weaver Family, who were a joy to watch work at this event.

[TaylorJohnson]

Jason ,
I sure wish I could have been there , I am glad it went well sound like a lot of fun. Next year I hope to have a little more cash in my pocket so I can come. Taylor Johnson

[Rod]

I do not want to jump in where I am completely unimformed and that is about logging and the firewood business. But I wonder if anyone is persuing the firewood needs of folks who buy outdoor wood furnaces. Mine burned 17 cords from thanksgiving to the first of March last year. The wood is 4′, does not need to be split if it’s able to be lifted, can be on the wet side and seems to me might be cheaper to prepare than the stove wood. I have friends that burn 25 to 30 cords a year in their furnaces and a few of these would make a good customer base for someone. Maby you guys are already doing it in that market but I thought I would mention as it might help a little.

[lancek]

hey Taylor.
Remind me next year and we can meet in iowa someplace and car pool down I fully intend to go next year too! lancek

[TBigLug]

The firewood market is alot better where you guys are than here. Out here I can get a cord of split wood delivered for $55. One of the drawbacks (or advantages depending on whether you’re buying or selling) of being in a state that seems to have more people selling firewood than gasoline.

We’re gonna skid some logs out of the back woods with the horses and cut and split it up for some friends who are down on their luck hopefully this month. Make a day of it with barbeque, chainsaws, splitters and horses. No money changing hands, just some old friendss having fun.

[OldKat]

@TBigLug 11383 wrote:

The firewood market is alot better where you guys are than here. Out here I can get a cord of split wood delivered for $55. One of the drawbacks (or advantages depending on whether you’re buying or selling) of being in a state that seems to have more people selling firewood than gasoline.

We’re gonna skid some logs out of the back woods with the horses and cut and split it up for some friends who are down on their luck hopefully this month. Make a day of it with barbeque, chainsaws, splitters and horses. No money changing hands, just some old friendss having fun.

Now that sounds like a good idea! Have some fun; see some friends, do some work, use some horses AND help some folks out. Can anyone think of a better way to spend some free time?

[TaylorJohnson]

tbiglug,
That sounds like a good day to me . be safe and have fun. Taylor Johnson

[TBigLug]

I will. Definitely gonna be alot of pictures.

[Gabe Ayers]

I think it is also appropriate to see the low grade wood as a valuable feedstock for growing mushrooms on, either native wild volunteer gourmet mushrooms or some inoculated with species that are valuable and marketable without moving wood from where it is fell in the process of improvement harvesting or TSI.

Food from the forest with less input is a good approach to generate income with less work, investment, fossil fuel and environmental impact.

[Robert MoonShadow]

Jason; That Athens HP-powered log splitter = any idea how fast it works? I like the premise, but am concerned w/ the operational speed: I need to be able to split 3+ cords per day, for it to be feasable {read ‘profitable’}.

Also, in reading this thread: what is “TSI”?

[Carl Russell]

Robert MoonShadow;12307 wrote:

…. what is “TSI”?

This is a definition from the index of terminology that I include in my forestry management plans.

Forest Improvement : Processes to improve the forest’s ability to meet long range objectives. T.S.I., or timber stand improvement typically is non-commercial thinning to remove low quality and poorly performing trees, improving the potential for growth of the best trees. Crop Tree Release is the practice of selecting the trees with the highest potential to meet long range objectives, and releasing them by removing direct competition. This can be done by harvest, or non-commercially by means of girdling, or cleaning and weeding by cutting unwanted stems.

Carl

[Gabe Ayers]

Well I don’t have any personal idea because we have not actually ran it ourselves yet.

The Weaver boys could have split three cord a day if they had a stout enough horse to keep it running. They were using some smaller maybe 1200 pound crossbred looking horses on the treadmill at SDAD. Tim Weaver told me and I can well imagine that the stouter the horse the more one can get done with them.

I am hoping to get Tim to write some about the whole experience of putting a horse on the treadmill for the first time and how he season’s one to long periods of work on this machine. The angle of the deck seems very important to the comfort of the horse and their ability to transfer their power into the moving floor underneath them.

They sent this treadmill home with us with no instruction, which I guess is another version of me being thought of as Mr. know it all and thinking I didn’t need any education on the tool. Well I do and will follow up on this Robert as time goes on. We have a nice stack of wood to split sitting beside it so we will find out.

The step up into the device is considerable about two feet or more off the ground so getting one to lead into the treadmill is a matter of the horse trusting the leader pretty well. Then just starting slowly and engaging the splitter and see how long they can walk while we split. That’s just my guess.

I didn’t pay real close attention to the young Mennonite teenagers that were running it but we skidded lots of wood and they split it all quite quickly while shifting around to keep the other two treadmills operating all the other stuff they had set up. One was an automatic bandsaw blade sharpener, then a refrigerator, freezer and washing machine and irrigation system.

I’ll let you know what we think after lowering the angle and putting our old stallion on there for a while.

[Robert MoonShadow]

Thanks, Jason; I’ll look forward to learning what you think of it. I’m presuming that if you increase the animal’s speed (I’m looking at my fat donkeys, here), you’ll get a corresponding increase in cycle rate?

Your “old stallion”…is that, um, Rudy?? A really stout Suffolk?

For such a high step-up, maybe a shorter ‘stepping stool’ or short ramp would help? ‘Cuz at 2 ft. high, on my 50″ & 52″ donkeys, it’s pretty much a ‘jump’, not a step, up. :rolleyes:

[Gabe Ayers]

Pirate Farmer,

I think the treadmill is geared such that a normal walking pace creates a PTO rpm that is adequate to drive what they are attaching it to. The centrifugal wood splitter seems to have plenty of rpm’s to operate quick enough, but it does also seem that power provided by the animal comes into play. I did notice that sometimes on a big knotty or crotch piece they would hit it twice to get it split. I am not sure how it actually works either, but if the effort is to great it withdraws and they just hit it again. It is a neat compact splitter and has not hydraulics or fossil fuel required, which is cool.

The splitter is worth just about the same as the treadmill.

The feature of elevation of the tread also seems to make a big difference. The Weavers did use some small ponies on these treadmills to run one of the treadmills they had set up, but the elevation was much steeper on the smaller animals than the larger. I suspect a true heavy draft would be on slightly less elevated, but I am yet to confer with Tim Weaver or actually experience it myself. The photo attached on the earlier message was just an experiment to see if I could get him up in the thing. As with every task we have asked of this horse he complied.

It is a jump up even for a full sized horse, so yes it would be a launch for a small donkey or pony. We also have thought of making a stool or ramp to help them get on and off, but haven’t done any more than think about it yet. The Mennonites just walk them up there and back them off. If there were a stool or ramp used it would have to be well based, wide and stable to keep the animal secure about climbing up such an incline. The fact that the animals have no blinders and full vision helps I would think.

We’ll share what we experience when we get time to mess with this. Our wood needs in my tiny little earth sheltered passive solar home is minimum. We pretty much are spoiled and burn locust slabs from our decking projects.
It is excellent wood and a coveted commodity in our circle of friends. It splits easy and burns slow and hot, lots of BTU’s in black locust.

I will connect with the Weavers and see if we can get some more detailed info on this next week. Thanks for the interest.

Regards,

[Author]

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