interesting morning in the woods

[mitchmaine]

Took my twitch horse into a fir bog to cut some wood and man did we get into a fix.i decorated her all up in orange flagging and bells to ward off the hunters. That seemed to work. All the trees were grown together at the tops and needed pulling down. We were on the third one, she’d already had it on the ground, so I was limbing it up for her. I turned to walk back to her and there she was trussed up on her back over a stump with her head downhill. What the h………………????? so I ran up and tried pulling her to her feet but she couldn’t or wouldn’t budge. Then I started unbuckling her harness and lines. Good old d-ring, two buckles. But the problem was her feet were bound together with tugs and heel chains around this sapling. Tight. So I had to cut the sapling low as I could, and pull a tug up and over and back around her heels and that slacked up the rest so I could undo her traces. She was free and unharnessed, but wouldn’t move. Broken leg? Gut stuck on a stub? Couldn’t tell. So I took her head by a leadrope and took a bight around a small tree and started pulling her head around and finally she’d had it and gave a try and up she came. Man. I looked her over and not a nick. Lucky.

It was something she and I’d done a lot of and she was very good at. The only thing I can think might have happened was she backed up to the sapling for a scratch maybe, got a foot around the outside of the tree and back into her slack heel chain, and when she took up the slack it tightened up on her? But both feet were caught and when she went over sideway it tightened it up some snug.
I had her back on her feet and calmed down, and in comes penny with lunch so the afternoon went pretty good. Shortened up a bit, but good. Anyway that’s the news from the dismal swamp. I guess one should always be ready for some bit of excitement even if you can’t really be ready. I had just pulled a woodhook off her hames a short while before that and was glad of tha But that was just luck. Good luck and try and stay safe out there.

mitch

[jac]

Jeez Mitch you told that petty calmly but I’ll bet the adrenalin was up.. just goes to show. Never a dull moment. Thank God you’re both out ok tho ..John

[Robert MoonShadow]

That horse must have deep confidence and trust in you…and obviously, for good reason. Good save!

[mitchmaine]

youre right about that john. tripping in the brush and all i could manage to think was i lost this horse. she is a good horse robert, and thanks. shes very determined, may not have all the finess that my last twitch horse had but makes up for it in go. sure would miss her.

[Rod]

Thankfully it turned out ok. Do you ever get the feeling that someone is watching out for you?

[near horse]

Good work Mitch. It seems like ropes, chains and even harness can twisted up in ways we can’t even imagine – even worse when an animal is caught in the mix.

[Tim Harrigan]

That’s a bad feeling when something goes bad with the animals when you are back in the brush. I was thinking about this today when I was going out. I like to travel light and only take what I am pretty sure I will need, but in thinking about this it was clear to me that I would not have the things I would most likely want to get us out of a mess like that. Carrying some extra safety gear along is a bother but it is like using chainsaw safety gear. You rarely need it and hope you never do, but that one time could be a big one. I’ll have to think about this.

[jac]

Good thoughts Tim… mabey even a good knife in a decent sheath strapped to the collar somewhere ?
John

[Baystatetom]

This is the type of thing I never tell my wife about. Every day was just great! No problems at all today dear.
~Tom

[mitchmaine]

@Rod 29959 wrote:

Thankfully it turned out ok. Do you ever get the feeling that someone is watching out for you?

you have a guardian angel too. i knew it. god bless them guardian angels, you, and all the rest out there listening. we have to kinda look out after each other too, don’t we? best wishes, mitch

[Tim Harrigan]

John, there are probably a number of things that might be useful, I was thinking specifically about rigging. Will and Abe both go over 2000 lbs, if one of them ever went down like that or got hung up in some way I would be hard pressed to move them or help them out. If I had my rigging and could get a 3 or 4 part line on them I might have a chance.

[Vicki]

Wow. . .I’m so glad you both got out of that OK. You were so calm to think what to do next.

Telling your story will help the rest of think ahead, to, “What if that happened with my animal? What would I do first, next?” etc.

Like emergency responders-police, fire, EMS-spend lots of time mentally rehearsing various tactical scenarios. A form of “daydreaming” preparation.

[mitchmaine]

thanks vicki, but it wasn’t that calm out there. i’d like to pretend that i even had a plan, but nope, i was just lucky. that said, i’ve only had that horse for under two years, but we’ve done alot of work together, and itg surprised me how much she let me do without fighting it. and the last couple days have been better than ever, and its been making me wonder if driving a single horse wouldn’t be a much wiser way to start a beginning teamster. its just the two of you and they really listen to you and have no partner to read for conflicting signals. i may be biased because i started with a single. a horse that was really smart. i thought at the time he was a little balky, but now in hindsight, i think he wouldn’t respond to a dumb command and patiently waited for me to come to the right decision and then responded. anyway, he set me on the right track, and the other day, i got a refreshed respect for the single horse and its been on my mind. again, thanks for the kind words and good advice. we all should have a plan b, or get away route ready. we do it unconsciously when we drop a tree or do something risky, and no sense not to fully think out each move with the horses. especially in a woodlot.
mitch

[Jim Ostergard]

Mitch,
Glad to hear you and the hoss are ok. Wonder if Penny is going to let you out of the house for a few days. Interesting observations about what we may have to contend with and wonder if we have anything but our experience to really help us out in a bad situation. A few winters ago up to MOFGA Rusty went off the packed snow trail at the same time he hung the butt of the log we were twitching hung on a stump and rolled with his back down a steep hill. I don’t know if I could have gotten him up alone and thankfully there were four other folks working nearby and with lines on the hames we got him rolled up and he got up. He fell twice more that winter and each time I was able to get his head up over his front feet and he was able to get up. Looking back that was most likely the start of his decline which manifested itself in loss of control of the hind end. Today I went down to Boothbay to pick up a set of heave runners for a sled and stopped in to check on the skidder gang I work with. Found all the machinery in the yard, doors open but no engines running. A cell phone call to one of them and found they were on there way to Togus. The old timer, a chopper and skidder driver who is 81 and only has one arm (forgot to mention he as a plate in his head and schrapnel in his leg from Korea) was on his way to getting 10 stitches in his hand. Seems as he was felling the weight of the saw pushed his hand onto a small sharp stub and punctured a vein. He wrapped it with a handkerchief and drove to the landing in his skidder. There Erik put the CLP first aid training into use and fixed him up enough to get him to the hospital. Sort of thing could happen to anyone or at least I can see myself in the same situation. Just goes to show how it pays to try and be slow and deliberate as we go about our work. Again glad it turned out as it did for the both of you.
Jim

[mitchmaine]

hey jim, that sounds like dougie leavitt. he used his prosthesis (spelling?) to cut wood with and then just pitch it in his pickup and go without. one evening headed home i saw his arm laying in the tar road, so i picked it up and threw it in back with my saws and delivered it to his woodyard the next day. that is one tough old bird. when the rest of us get whingin’, we should remember doug and get over it and back to work. thanks for that one, jim. give doug my best, tell him i’m thinking about him, and see if he still remembers us. mitch

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