Ox Logging–Pulling Down Hang-Ups

[Tim Harrigan]

@dominiquer60 29736 wrote:

Crossbow works, but it has also been mentioned on this site that cutting the roses and painting the stump directly with herbicide is effective and very exact use of a chemical.

Has anyone here tried using hogs to combat multiflora?

I have resisted using chemicals for several years. Now I am considering spot spraying individual plants so I can be exact in what gets sprayed. Never tried hogs or goats, not set up for fencing either of those. It seems like goats could do the job though.

[Baystatetom]

@Tim Harrigan 29741 wrote:

I have resisted using chemicals for several years. Now I am considering spot spraying individual plants so I can be exact in what gets sprayed. Never tried hogs or goats, not set up for fencing either of those. It seems like goats could do the job though.

I do way more invasive plant control then I want to. I am sure I will misspell the names without looking right at the label, but multiflora and bar berry are both pretty easy to kill. Glyphasate found in round up or rodeo works well. Tractor supply also has a cheaper store brand. The real trick is to get the whole plant, even though it is supposedly systemic it is possible to kill only half the plant. Garlon or brush be gone works quite well also, active ingredient is Triclopere again misspelled I am sure, it will not kill grasses so is good in pastures, will not harm animals but passes right through them so you can’t use it near milkers. I really prefer a motorized backpack mist blower that way you can hit the whole plant without having to climb right in it. You can do a cut stem treatment if you are prepared to donate a quart of blood to your cause. Mix the round up with windshield washer fluid to prevent freezing in the winter at about 20% active ingredient or use garlon 4 in mineral oil. Rose has a ten year seed bank so you are in for a long fight.

I wasn’t a chemical fan either but after fighting with the stuff for so long I now realize it is the easiest most cost effective method to get the job done and done well. I’ll PM you my # if you want more info. To bad your not closer I could help in the field.
~Tom

[Baystatetom]

Should have also mentioned many invasive plants are quick to colonize disturbed soil. Letting hogs rut it all up might have a short term gain but it would come back several fold I am sure. I have heard of some success with goats and sheep but I am not sure they will kill it or just suppress it for the time they are around. So many of my clients have asked about this I am thinking of buying a small herd myself.
~Tom

[Vicki]

Another great video, Tim.

Anyone want to address safety issues in pulling down hang-ups and “widow-makers”? Some leaners I’ll pull, but I’ve been reluctant to approach others, not sure how they might fall or flip.

[Baystatetom]

Just go slow and easy. If it scares you a little bit you are in good shape. If it scares you a lot leave it alone! Somebody told me once “Just remember a lot of people better then you have been killed doing the same thing”. I think of that all the time. I was cutting a hung up oak and ended up with 7 broken bones and crutches from April 1 to July 4th. I cut a lot of ice storm damage, every tree had a widow maker in it. There is no real safe way, just try and be slow.
OSHA regs require removal of all snags and “danger trees” before working within a tree length of them. Bad for wildlife, good for ground men.
~Tom

[Tim Harrigan]

@Vicki 29774 wrote:

Another great video, Tim.

Anyone want to address safety issues in pulling down hang-ups and “widow-makers”?

I thought that a few others might want to join the discussion but I can comment from my point of view. I have to say that I was a little hesitant to post this video because of the nature of the work and the underlying considerations but some of us have agreed on the educational value of these videos to clearly demonstrate what we do. I also think safety should be a part of our discussions related to working animals and it is often overlooked so I am glad you brought it up.

Working safely is an attitude grounded in an awareness that the physical nature of our work can lead to injuries to us or our animals if we do not understand our limitations or have not developed a systematic approach to observing our environment and anticipating how our animals and the loads they pull will interact. So in this logging video there is an underlying assumption that the team is experienced in woods work, steady, and unlikely to be rattled by the sounds and feel of the loads they are pulling. But that is a training issue and is worthy of a separate discussion.

There is also an assumption that the teamster is experienced in woods work and observant and attentive to details. I am not a professional logger but I have learned from loggers on DAPnet that a professional approach is not a function of how much wood you cut. With a professional approach you learn something every time you fell and skid a tree or pull down a hang-up. What you do not see in the video is how much time and work went into preparing to pull down each of the hang-ups, big or small. There was time looking up, not only at the hang-up but at adjacent trees that could be affected, and time looking for widow makers–dead branches or debris that could fall or be thrown by whipping limbs when the hang-up came down.

The angle of the hang-up and how the limbs are tangled affect the required direction of pull and how the log is chained. The team needs a clear skid route and good footing, and the sawyer need a clear work area and escape route so there was a lot of time swamping out the work area for the team. Usually the butt of the hang-up needed to be cut and prepared and that included a whole set of safety considerations as well.

At about 2:05 of the video you can see that even after I have finished the prep work and Will and Abe were hitched and ready to go, I still re-checked the hitch, took another look up at the hang-up and re-checked the skid path before I asked them to step into the load. There was a deliberate and systematic process that preceded each pull. And don’t forget the hard hat, work gloves, cutting chaps, steel toed shoes and other safety equipment.

There is an element of danger in pulling down hang-ups but with attention to detail the danger is really no more than with other logging activities. But things can happen and you need to know when you are operating within your capabilities and when you need to walk away.

[CharlyBonifaz]

besides working with oxen/horses:
how is your mobile phone net functioning in (these) remote areas? anyone uses mobiles with a “dead man”-function?
are all of you working alone?
in other wods: what is your escape route if anything did happen?

[dlskidmore]

@Vicki 29774 wrote:

Anyone want to address safety issues in pulling down hang-ups and “widow-makers”? Some leaners I’ll pull, but I’ve been reluctant to approach others, not sure how they might fall or flip.

I was surprised they were working with such a short chain. I only have limited experience with small stuff, but a snag tends to build up potential energy as you pull, and move in unexpected ways when that energy releases.

[Vicki]

Tim, Tom, and dl: I appreciate your comments. This site and some of these threads are so valuable and interesting!

Being able to know when you are operating in your capabilities and knowing when to walk away–that’s great advice. That’s why I leave many hang-ups to come down on their own with heavy snow or wind. My older oxen are pretty unflappable, but I don’t really know what I’m doing in the woods like others of you do. I’m fine with that. We keep working and trying new things, but with a lot of caution. Learning, trying, and enjoying the work with oxen is very satisfying; having just passed my double-nickel birthday, it’s quite wonderful and rejuvenating to keep working and attempting to progress and improve!

I know from experience that these oxen will stop on a dime any time I slip or fall down in the woods. No worries of getting run over.

I usually am alone when I’m working in the woods, and I remember to bring my cell phone nowadays. There is good service there. Another reason for me to err on the side of caution, being alone with the oxen in the woods. My husband is along if we are actually felling anything.

I don’t know what a “dead man” function is.

[CharlyBonifaz]

I don’t know what a “dead man” function is.

it will automatically set off an alarm to a chosen number if it hasn’t been moved for a certain time

I know from experience that these oxen will stop on a dime any time I slip or fall down

I have a notion, that is a built-in safety device; mine will do the same; had a hard time slowing them down the other day (hadn’t been doing anything for a week) so I decided to go for deep grounds; when I stumbled over my own feet and fell, they did stop immediately; made me wonder if I should use it on purpose as emergency brake

[fabian]

@CharlyBonifaz 29837 wrote:

when I stumbled over my own feet and fell, they did stop immediately

may be that I’m wrong but my experience is that they must not be trained for that behaviour but do it “automatically”. Perhaps it’s because WE ware the “leading animal” in the team.
But IF it is so, nature did well to fix this in the animal’s brains.

Wolfgang

[Baystatetom]

I’ll have to check that out myself. Although mine move pretty fast with a load, I’ll have to be sure and fall to the side not in front!
Tom

[dominiquer60]

A team stopping when you fall because you are the leading animal makes sense to me. I have had this happen before and they stop and turn to look at me trying to get up. But I also have other experiences that convince me of the same. This fall when I was tinkering around with driving my team from behind, I discovered that my team doesn’t really know what whoa means, they see whoa the body language, but not whoa the word. From behind they certainly needed help from the lines to stop, not a lot, but with out seeing me stop, it was just another word to them. After some practice they did eventually stop by voice and no lines, just something I will have to keep reinforcing I guess.

Then a couple weeks ago I was changing up our routine a bit by calling them to me from 20′-30′ away. I taught my dog to stop on command in the middle of a come (it has been handy when he is on the wrong side of the road and a car is coming), so I thought I would teach the team the same. Sure enough they were happy to come up to me and stop and stand with me without encouragement to whoa, but when I asked them to whoa part way, it didn’t click right away. It took a couple tries but they got it fairly quick, but I am still convinced it is my body that they are listening to and not so much my voice command in this case.

[Baystatetom]

Your right Erika. That’s one thing I had to teach my kids, was to stop moving when they said whoa. If you say whoa but keep walking most teams will not stop.
~Tom

[Tim Harrigan]

@dominiquer60 29930 wrote:

…but I am still convinced it is my body that they are listening to and not so much my voice command in this case.

Yes, I agree. You can easily drive all day without saying a word and they will be very responsive to your position and movements. They seem to really feel that pressure and react reflexively. You have to work at voice commands and even with work there is a gradation of response. Will and Abe are more responsive to whoa when they have a load than without, and more responsive heading away from home than when going home. They are also more responsive when they like the nature of the command than when it is something they would rather not do. I have thought of taking time to get them to be responsive to voice commands to some precise and tight moves such as pivoting haw-to or gee-off when I am on a sled or stoneboat, but I have not gotten to it. I really prefer to just have them responsive to the work we do, that seems to be most rewarding to all of us. I loose patience with tricks and other fancy stuff.

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