law of averages

[mitchmaine]

I remember a couple guys got in this contest seeing which one worked the hardest. Rules were you had to cut, yard or both at least one hitch to make a work day. Cruising a woodlot, fixing saws, working on machinery didn’t count. A bunch of us joined in over a couple years of it til it lost its edge and we forgot all about it. But I remember that 200 days was the sound barrier. No one ever worked over 200 days. Sounds crazy but that’s all we could do. And you had to freeze and drown to do it. The guys with teams couldn’t average much over three cords per day. They might cut and yard 5 cord for a couple days but the average over the year was 2 – 3 cord per day alone. For every short hitch, there was a long one. For every good day there was a poor one. Guys with skidders and crawlers couldn’t get in as many days as the horse loggers, because of Mud season, spring and fall. For all the extra wood they could cut, two loads per day, quotas held them back to three or four loads per week, and you spend a day or two waiting for a truck. 4-500 cords was a good year for a horse logger and 12 – 1500 cord was a good year for a skidder operator. It was the race between the tortoise and the hare. Slow and steady won that race. All you had to do was show up every day.

[Rick Alger]

Hey Mitch,

Wasn’t that law amended to let us old guys stretch the truth by 50%?

Actually the average around here for one man with a single horse over the season was a cord and a half a day in spruce/fir. (A team is overkill in 12″ wood.)

In marked wood, I can’t do much better than that today.

For final harvests with a pair, I’d agree with the three cord/1500 feet average.

Another thing that cuts into productivity is the shortness of the days in January and February. Even when it isn’t thirty below, there is hardly enough daylight to get a day’s work done.

[mitchmaine]

hey rick, correct! superman couldn’t cut two cord of fir and spruce and keep it going, but that stuff isn’t wood. no man ever made a days pay after the fifth cut up in that mess. i hear ya! mitch

[TaylorJohnson]

Mitch ,
That is about right , it don’t seem like it would be but it is . Most crews up here would get in about 38 weeks of work time in that is about 266 days. You all more than likely get a lot more rain and bad weather days . We always worked very hard to and always did find break up work so we could most of the time get though that with out much down time.
Now we never stooped and figured out exactly how many days but I bet it was close to your 200 but think we may have gotten more in because are weather might not be as wet as you guys out there.
We did not have the quotas so my Dad pushed very hard to produce and we could most of the time sell it all.There was an old logger up here that use to say if you make your self put in 30 hours a week on the job no matte how bad the weather is you will produce wood and make good money. Know he did not mean to work in the rain all the time but to go there and be on the job even if you just read a book . His theory was that if you were there and it cleared up or you could stand it you would work , if you were at home and it cleared up you could not. I think he has a good point.
to average that 3 cord a day with a horse is pure work , some days you might get a lot more but there will be those tough days or long skids or what ever to show you that your just not that good LOL . My Dad and Uncles had a better average but they just did not have long skids . The cut stumps low or bull dozed roads to get a truck in to make it a good skid. The trucks on average were smaller then and truckers had more sand then to I think. I shoot for more but man it is tough to get past that 3 average . I can go a stretch and bet it but sometimes you feel like you might drop over LOL .
And you said it right when you said to get that amount of time in you worked cold and wet a lot of those days. We had a lot of guys quit us when it got wet , we would just put on rain coats and go as long as we could stand it one time a guy walked off the job and called my Dad and said ” hey I just ain’t that mad at those trees to work in that weather.
To someone that has never logged it might not sound like a lot of work time but most of them would not want to even follow a logger that put in that many days in the bush let alone work them . Loggers sure earn their pennies , and I say pennies not just in jest bu because most of the time that is what is left 🙂 . Taylor Johnson

[Rick Alger]

Hey Taylor,

If you figure five working days for 38 weeks you get 190 working days.

I agree that most people don’t understand how hard it is. They like to think logging is laid back and mellow. I believe horselogging videos contribute to this misunderstanding. The videos picture the ideal. They don’t generally feature a hard-pressed logger chasing enough pulp to fill a tractor trailer.

But anyway, there are plenty of folks on this board who Know how hard you work.
Keep the faith.

Rick

[Scott G]

@mitchmaine 18978 wrote:

Cruising a woodlot, fixing saws, working on machinery didn’t count.QUOTE]

The thing is, Mitch/all, that it does. This is one of the major things that financially burn loggers/forestry contractors regardless of what type of operation they have, horse/mule or mechanical.

It is your time, and time costs money. You still need to pay your bills, etc. as they don’t take time off.

It boils down to scheduled hours versus actual operational hours, if you are not honest with yourself on this you will get burned. I did, that is why I am somewhat of an evangelist on this.

If, when you are honest and look at your records (yes, while you are sitting in your truck during a downpour/blizzard on the landing put some pen to paper) and discover that of your scheduled hours you are only moving wood 70-80% of that time, then you need to budget accordingly, either by adjusting your rates or decreasing expenses.

It is a standard that you are going to have to maintain saws/equipment, horses, vehicles, etc.. and travel to bid on stumpage/jobs. It is all time that you are not moving wood but is an integral part of your business. Neglect any of those items and your business will suffer even though they do not directly deposit money in the bank.

I know you guys are wrestling with stumpage rates and don’t have much room to work with but that doesn’t negate putting pencil to paper to discover what the true costs are. It is usually scary, but very necessary to run a business. And yes, even the most low-overhead, low-production horse logging operation is still a business.

I’ll second the thought that even if it is miserable, you are better off to get your butt up to the landing. There is always something to do on a decent sized show such as working on equipment, doing some sorting on the deck, or just sitting in your truck pondering the job at hand. Doing something is usually more productive/profitable than doing nothing…

[TaylorJohnson]

Ya Rick I must have messed my math up last night. The videos are ok but the are not the reality of what a horse logging carer is , at least not what mine is . I know there are guys on here that know what the work is , this board is some what of a support group for me LOL. I always carry a few sets of clothes with me and I have had a few land owners ask me why I do that. It is so if I have to go some were I can change clothes . If I showed up at the store looking like I do in the bush they might call the law on me :). I also do a lot of my bidding or talking with land owner at night after work and Like to at least change my shirt so I bring a couple of gallons of water along just to wash my face and upper body put on a fresh shirt and I am ready for business or at least from the wast up I don’t look like an animal. I have had a few land owners tell me that when they first seen me walk up to the door they did not know if they should open it or not LOL, they said this of course after they got to know me . When time permits I will dress up a bit to do my door to door visits but if time does not I have to make due and that means 2 gallon jugs of water and a fresh shirt. Another thing I find is that on my off days I am working on buy business in some way , all the time like I tell people it is a life style . I do hunt and fish but man there is a lot of business to take care of every day. I do love it though and I do love driving a good team , when I am not on a day like today when there is a down pour I am thinking about things like , this is one more day I can not drive my team and they only last so long and I can not wast my time with them some day I will miss the hardest day I ever had in the bush and miss even my most miserable horse / mule . I think about things like this and it makes me appreciate what I have , money is one thing to me but life is what motivates me not the green backs. Taylor Johnson

[mitchmaine]

one thing not so bad about breaking down was running to the saw shop and knowing you’d be fifth in line and somebodys day was worse than yours. you could all bitch about the same demons for half an hour, build up your courage and head back. i don’t hear so much of it anymore, and it’s good to hear you guys talking.

mitch

[Scott G]

Back in the day, more often than not, coming out of backwoods basecamp after a week looking & smelling like Sasquatch to get groceries, diesel, etc.. and scaring the hell out of “normal” urban society. Complete avoidance, and mother’s grabbing their children in the grocery store, gave me sole possession of the aisles and checkout counter. Even scared them after I took a douse in the creek or the solar shower, maybe it was just me. I always figured it was good for them. Fellows at the saw shop and ag stores were the only ones who took me as somewhat normal…

OK, Stories…

A great friend of mine who’s been re-entering the stand for a few decades told me of a winter season when he was a young buck faller for another outfit.

The whole crew would travel to the very distant cut (2+ hours) every day in the crummy (term for crew vehicle). One of the fellows never took a shower all winter, was beyond filthy, and smelled like roadkill. The stench got so bad in the rig they kept the windows rolled down in mid-winter and everyone smoked big cheap cigars. They repeatedly warned & cussed at him and threatened him with bodily harm but to no avail. The woods boss wouldn’t fire him because they were having a hard time finding decent fallers.

Come late winter/spring when the ice on the beaver pond they passed every day started to break up they made their move. First thing in the morning when they came up on the pond they brought the crummy to a screeching halt and the whole crew grabbed the guy, stripped him, and threw him through the scum ice in the pond into the water. Tossed him a bar of soap and wouldn’t let him get out until he lathered up & rinsed properly. He didn’t show for work after that…

[TaylorJohnson]

It is good to talk on here for sure and at times I think about what it would be like if we all lived a little closer , boys we could put on one hell of a log show , I know we could.
Scott we had a big fella that worked with us like that to . He just would not take a bath. He was a fare worker and could lift about anything in the woods the did not have roots on it but man he stunk. My dad told him one day ” you better clean up or you will have to ride on the back of the truck on the way home tomorrow . The next day came and in the morning it was hard to tell but once he had a days work on him he was like a bucket of rotted guts. We were working up in the UP of Michigan and driving about 1.5 hours one way. That night we were all loading up and he took his coat of and it would have made a maggot roll away. Dad said OK you dirty bastard on the back , he said Ken it is to cold to ride on the back it was winter in the UP so it was cold. Dad said I don’t care your riding on back, he said I ain’t ridden on back and started to get in the truck . Dad said get on the back or I will wear this ax handle out on you head . Every one got real quite and he looked Dad over and haply got on the back . It was funny after the tension cleared , he took a bath and came back to work and talked so sweat sugar would not have melted in his mouth . My Dad was only 5’6” but looked like a human pit bull that guy was 6’3” at least and was well over 300lb but I think he knew Dad was willing to keep his word . He looked funny bulled all up on the back of that truck. Taylor Johnson

[Carl Russell]

You know I ran into a lobster fisherman in Nova Scotia one day at a dock, and bought some from him. We fell to talking, and turns out he had been a hill farmer before he took to the water. We shared some stories, but in the end he said he figured his take on averages was, “wake up early, put your head down, and bust your ass till dark”.

One of the things I found hard about making a career out of logging was that there were so many other things I wanted/needed to do on my own land. I have found that having horses has been a huge advantage because they are low overhead, but they are also a very diverse power source, and I can apply them to work on a commercial job, and in my garden.

I agree with Scott’s sentiments about figuring how much goes into making a buck, and I started out doing that. In fact when I would talk to other loggers about fixed and variable costs their eyes would glaze over. I also can appreciate the need to get to the job as often as possible, as if you aren’t there you can’t get the work done.

The problem/benefit of the way I am living now is that I have so many things going on that I can always find something to do that will benefit me long-term. Like yesterday the vet suggested I give the mare some time off to get on top of an injury. I really don’t want to, because I have a lot of 2 horse logging to do, but you know I barely missed a beat, because I have a hundred projects on the back burner.

It is a lot of work to get to the place where work can have direct benefit to you without having to turn it into money first, but it has always been how I filled my “down time”, and now I find that the expenses associated with my commercial work are so low that I just get up early, put my head down, and bust my ass till dark, regardless of what it happens to be today, and you know what, things keep getting done.

Carl

[TaylorJohnson]

That is one of the main things I like about the horses is that they are so versatile. Logging ,plowing snow/dirt , riding ,,,, there is so much that you can do with them.
Carl that is one of the biggest things I am working on right now is to have things to be doing that pay even if I am not in the bush.
I use to buy a timber/ land and resell it but the guys and the crews I liked to work with are out of the game or struggling pretty hard right not . If I put a grew on a job I have to be able to trust them to do it right and not steal. I would love to put more horses to work in the brush but the insurance rates are to high. I am going to be making some calls this week to see if we can get the ball moving to change that a bit . We did get some weight limit laws changed in our favor this year so the trucks with six axles can haul 98,000lb year round and all state roads. Some states you can have up to 5 employees with out having comp on them , that would be nice. To be a horse logger you have to be able to think out side of the box to stay a horse logger and you have to be willing like that old fisherman said to get up early and work till dark. There is an old Viking saying” If you want another mans life or land you must wake early. No lamb for the lazy wolf “.

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