Modern Horse Logging Private Instructional Course

[Gabe Ayers]

The attachment below is our ad for our private instructional course taught here in the village on the plateau on the edge of Appalachia.

The cost for this course is 1600.00 for the entire week, room and board included (at the Bent Mountain Lodge), home cooked local meals. Half deposit required to secure a spot.

Please contact me at the information below if you have any thoughts or questions. Thanks to DAP for this option.

Warm Salute,

[Gabe Ayers]

It was a wonderful week working in the woods with our students. By the end, they could select a worst first individual tree, cut it down safely and skid it out with the team they had harnessed that morning. Very satisfying for a teacher and rewarding for the students. Now there are more folks with this skill base to work in the woods of their communities.

Attached is a photo of one rainy day activity – hoof care on the herd sire…..

Off to the next event – Southern Draft Animal Days……..

[Jim Ostergard]

Jason,
I for one am happy you are able and have some success in bringing new folks into the fold. It is a great challenge to organize and carry through on a training course of the intensity and time of yours. Much like this wonderful website we need to pass on our skills to those who will follow. It is pretty hard for the individual horse logger to pass on those skills with poor economics and various state organizations looking at one (at least here in Maine). We are fortunate to have the Maine Organic Farmers and their Low Impact Forestry project which offers some good guidance for folks thinking of using draft animal power. This website offers us all an open forum and I am always learning something from the questions and responses of others.
Again good for you helping to pass it along.
Jim Ostergard. Appleton, Maine

[Scott G]

Nice pic, Jason. Is the stick to keep the horse from leanin’ or to beat the farrier up side the head when he quicks the foot?! 🙂
Take care,
Scott G

[Gabe Ayers]

Hey Scott,

The stick is actually a broom handle that the student was using to sweep trimmings out of the way throughout the hoof paring operation. We are not really great photographers and certainly resist setting up photo ops, so this was about the best shot we had of the group while not in the woods. It may have actually worked for both those other jobs though Scott.

Speaking of which the rain just continues in the mid Atlantic and Appalachian region. I have never experienced anything like this in thirty plus years of farming. We had one small window of two days without rainfall this weekend and were able to apply some timely cultivation in our garden and truck patches without it being a mud stirring experience instead of weed control. We have not made a sprig of hay yet, just haven’t had three days without rain since about mid May and our hay, being mostly timothy was not ready then…. so we wait for the next weather change, which we hope includes some low humidity sunny weather.

Attached is a photo of that same stick wheeling student driving that same herd sire doing something useful with his energy besides servicing mares. He hadn’t worked in a year or so, so it took a couple of rows to get him to accept that he wasn’t going back to the barn every time he was pointing in that direction. We used a three foot cultivator and put two shovels on the outside feet to turn soil toward the rows in two passes each row. It is living out the old song, “plow my corn with a double shovel”….lay it by for this season.

PS – We now have two Brabant or Ardenennes (sp) mares here for breeding with this Suffolk stallion. (Rudy) We are not sure if they will be called Brafolks, or Suffants? The mares are small enough that according to Simon’s description they may be the latter European breed. They are bay roans, about 15/2, 1600 pounds, lots of bone and black course hair on the legs.

[Scott G]

Jason,
My vote is Suffant, has a nice ring to it. Thinking of more integration of Brabants/Ardennes into your herd? I really like the build and preserved conformation/history of that breed. Perfect for logging……….
-Scott

[Gabe Ayers]

Naw,

It just happens to be a fellows young mares that he wants to breed some crosses out of. This fellow has several mules and donkeys, but this is the only pair of horses he has. He just wanted to do something different.

Of course I am always interested in what is born out of the service of this Rudy horse and all of them I have kept over the years. It is amazing how many of these horses come around over and over throughout their lives. It is like you have a dealership and your brand keeps coming back into the shop. I really enjoy finding good homes for them with folks who work them. I’m always trading folks and buying and selling, but mostly just putting customers and owners together for the best of the horse and people as the goal.

I am truly interested in this particular cross, but suspect they will become members of this fellows family. I will try to keep up with them.

Although I really am dedicated to the Suffolk horse, but have always crossed them with any mares of breeding quality and of substance or reasonable size.

We see what comes of the cross. I never have been able to get Tommy Flowers to cross his Barbants with Suffolks.

[becorson]

congratulations on another sucessful class. i second what jim ostergard said about the value of hosting classes like this. probably a little early to ask, but is the next class scheduled yet?

[Gabe Ayers]

Thanks Jim and Barbara,

We haven’t scheduled another intro class yet. The problem is the cost of advertising in the national pubs. A color add is very expensive, so we probably won’t do that again. We need about five students to make it worthwhile and with just the one ad in DHJ we only had three last time. We do continue to attract some interest locally from young folks and have a couple with us most of the time. That is encouraging, but the fact is that it is hard to make a living doing the right things in the natural world, so I understand how difficult it is to recruit folks into this as a business or lifestyle. They have to want to do it and find us, which is a slow process. We continue to be dedicated to perpetuating the cultural traditions that reward truly sustainable practices.

There also has been some interest in an advanced course that would include former students and current practitioners, part and full time. This would be to work at multiple hitches, steeper ground, cable and sheave usages and more advanced horsemanship skills.

We also continue to be open to private instruction for anyone that wants to come and spend time with us in the actual working conditions while practicing restorative forestry. It does seem appropriate that these educational experiences become more and more decentralized and occur in the communities that the student lives and intends to practice. It is just hard to find an experienced mentor that is willing to give instruction in all areas of the country.

On that note I got an email that said Farmer Brown is selling his farm and downsizing. I don’t have any details on that situation but loosing him would be an incredible hole in this community of interest. Jimmy Brown is the real deal and Linda is a dream wife for that awesome country man. I think they are at Horse Progress Days this weekend. It is Horse Progress Days, not Farm Progress Days as mentioned in the events post here on DAP.

We will be in the hay fields trying to save what forage we can in this erratic weather of 09.

Thanks for the support and interest of the DAP group.

Sincerely,

[Author]

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