Working Alone

[Anonymous]

I don’t know if this issue has been addressed directly in other threads, but I thought I’d bring it up, since its been hinted at in some recent ones. Now that I’m not logging, and I look back at being alone out in the woods for eight hours a day, dropping and bucking 20 some trees and skidding most of them in some of those days, and I wonder if that was a smart thing for me to do.

I did it for a few reasons, but I’m not sure I should have been working alone.
1) I didn’t want the pressure of keeping someone else busy all the time, and how that might compromise what kind of jobs I took and how I went about completing them. I felt I just wasn’t busy enough.

2) Its not easy to find people who are skilled at either precision chainsaw work, or even less so at working with horses. Those two skills, along with restorative forestry were the backbone to my business. I worried that I would be introducing more danger to my work if I had a feller who couldn’t put trees down where they needed to be; both to minimize residual stand damage, and to maximize efficiency with the horses extracting. I was pretty sure I didn’t have an able teamster in the area. And I didn’t know if anyone was up to the hard work.

3) I often just liked the solitude of working alone, and knowing I could fill a deck of logs with just my team.

Looking back, I wonder if I shouldn’t have worked more to involve other people in my business, both for my own safety, and to expand the number of people who truly understand what this work is about.

What do other people think about working alone?

-Luke

[Carl Russell]

For the significant majority of the last 22 years I have worked alone in the woods. There have been a couple of times where I cooperate with friends of mine to get a larger job done quicker(pic in other thread), and one rare situation where I had a young woman working with me for nearly a year.

For the most part I feel that I am safer when alone because I am not stressed with keeping that person busy, or watching to make sure they don’t make a mistake.

I have found however that when I work with friends who are also used to working alone, or as it turned out with that young woman, that working with another person can be enjoyable, and more productive.

I’m not completely sure that having another person in the woods actually make the risk any less, just gives you a second chance to get help.

Although I tend toward extroverted, I also thoroughly enjoy working all by myself. I find a great deal of reward in taking on a project that requires physical and intellectual challenges, and I can be completely entertained by my own thoughts and efforts.

That being said, I know that having another person in the woods can be advantageous both in terms of production and in the case of emergency. I just don’t think that it is always a viable option in this day and age, and in rural communities. I would never hire just anybody to work just to have another person there.

Carl

[J-L]

It’s funny you should bring this up. Just the other day I was visiting with my uncle (who is my neighbor also) and he said he worried so much about me down there working teams by myself daily. He said he’d feel better if there were someone with me.
This caught me off guard and made me think. Here’s a guy who’s 81 years old and still driving a team of Belgians most every day (but with his kid’s or grandkids) who grew up using horses on the ranch, who logged with horses for years, and he’s still concerned about you being by your lonesome working animals. I guess he knows all the pitfalls out there.
I just never give it too much thought. You just go and do your work the way you know how, and try to think ahead enough not to get yourself in a bind that you can’t walk away from.
I kind of like it out by myself also. But now and again having someone to B.S. with besides these mules is a nice change.

[Anonymous]

i’m surprised i’ve made it this long without any injury. but thats not what prompted me me to to take on a helper, the worry of being alone out in the woods. i need to get more work done , period. more saw work, more horse work. so this thread means something to me, cause my partner is coming monday. were going horse camping next week where i’ve got a hundred skids ready to go. soon on my list will be a digital camera. bob h.

[Gabe Ayers]

Well I suppose from a systems view of the engineering of this work there are many ways to get the work done.

Working alone tends to be the default situation for most of us that have actually done this work for income over the years, simply because if this is what you choose to do and there is nobody to help – then you go do it alone.
There is certainly a clear sense of accomplishment in getting it done alone and may be the core ability of the services we provide. Sure is may be more dangerous in a “get help if you are hurt sense”, but the basic safety and fore thought, anticipation of action/reactions, is a part of what one will have to think about regardless of the number of human workers present. There is comfort in having that knowledge and experience. Anyone that has done it very long knows what I mean. For instance when you know how to do it alone and keep all the money you make for yourself you won’t be tempted to have other folks around just for the company. Just like with the animals there has to be a leader and the one that has and can do all of it alone – is that natural leader.

Then there is the expanded system that includes more than one human operator. We tend to think that there is an efficiency related to having as many folks in the woods as we do animals. The most common crew is a timber cutter and a teamster. An experienced two person crew can be a situation of one plus one equals three.

There is no greater phrase in this work than “site specific”. This means so much. Potential silviculture, soil, slope, history, skid distance, inventory available, landowner attitude, on and on. Nothing is more important than the “site specific” characteristics. This is why you walk the site before taking on the job – assess these site specific considerations. This is also the best opportunity for landowner education.

Going out alone to take on serious logging should only be done by the experienced practitioner. Please don’t try this at home alone.
If you are not experienced, that is an easy condition to correct, just simply go find someone that is doing it and offer to help in exchange for learning. If you live in the central Appalachians, contact HHFF.

Another aspect of this work is that it is more fun when done with someone else. Enjoying what you do is important. That becomes an “opportunity cost” that everyone will have to assess on their own. I tend to be on the extrovert side of the personality isle also and like being with other folks that have interests in common. It is usual that the coolest stuff happens when nobody else is around, so having someone else there gives you someone to laugh with and to grow the experience base beyond one individual. It gives the anthropological culture a continuity only available in a social setting.

One instance comes to mind. Once we were working at the top of a cove where the wood had to come up hill and while hooking to a log I just happen to be watching the timber feller working several hundred feet down hill and across the cove cutting a big white oak that was obviously in decline and probably hollow. It was hollow and when it hit the ground the chainsaw operator (after following the prescribed safety techniques) began to buck the hollow part off to get to the salable wood. This was just normal work, the same procedure every time those conditions exist. As each section was removed to get the log to being no more than 1/3 rotten the chunks would roll down the cove into the hollow. Nothing unusual just normal work where the pieces were released from the up hill side and refinement of the material was occurring. Then just as one piece rolls away and the feller withdraws the saw and reaches to attach the log tape – a big coon came scurrying out of the hollow log and jumps up on the remaining stem and scampers up the log and off into the next holler…. This of course all took place in about 15/30 seconds and I wish everyone could have seen the reaction by this big brawny lumberjack dude when the fuzzy coon revealed himself unexpectedly…he let out a whoop and did a back up the hillside that was about as instant and entertaining as anything I have ever seen. I laughed so hard I had to set down for a spell. Now that just would not have been as funny alone….or even possible.

For creations sake folks, don’t work in the woods alone if you don’t have lots of experience. For all of you old hands out there, keep sharing what you know when you can afford to, your cultural skills are precious, valuable and priceless.

It is part of the HHFF mission, goals and objectives to facilitate learning these skills and ethics as it relates to the public good.

I suspect it is only a matter of time before L. Saunders gets back in the woods….

[Rick Alger]

In Northern NH there are plenty of people with the skills. The problem is Worker’s Comp insurance. State law requires it in NH, and the cost is around 50% of payroll.

I have had to work alone for years, not because I wanted to, but because I could not afford to pay both an employee and an insurance company.

I may try an employee this season because the years are gaining on me. My reflexes and endurance “ain’t what they useta be”

[simon lenihan]

I worked on my own for 15 years before my eldest son joined me, i worked the most inhospitable woods as they were the only woods available to us at the time. I never thought of the work being dangerous, just got a good buzz from working steep ground. In hindsight i now realise how dangerous it actually was and when it comes to my sons doing the same work today i am so paranoid. I always insist on two of them working together and to stay in phone contact if they are working another wood. There has been a number of test cases over the past few years in regards to loggers working alone where the company awards the contract to a firm who in turn sub contract out to a sole contractor, the company then trys to stop the contract on the grounds of health and safety, as far as i know they have not being successfull in stopping contractors working alone. However you have to meet the following requirements[ for insurance purposes ] in order to be allowed to work alone. Insurance aside anyone working alone should also adhere to these reuirements.
1/ mobile phone contact every 30 minutes to a partner or a colleague, there are also companys who for a small fee will contact you through your mobile phone or a reciever .
2/ First aid kit on logging belt.
3/ carry whistle in pocket
4/ walky talky,reciever can be left in house of neighbour adjacent to wood
5/ Always know your grid reference, nearest hospital / doctor / ambulance, this should be part of a risk assesment and carried on your self, if trapped / injured you can relay these to the emergency services.
6/ In the case of no phone signal you can diall [ 112 ] it will get you through to emergency numbers.
simon lenihan

[CharlyBonifaz]

1/ mobile phone contact every 30 minutes to a partner or a colleague, there are also companys who for a small fee will contact you through your mobile phone or a reciever .
2/ First aid kit on logging belt.
3/ carry whistle in pocket
4/ walky talky,reciever can be left in house of neighbour adjacent to wood
5/ Always know your grid reference, nearest hospital / doctor / ambulance, this should be part of a risk assesment and carried on your self, if trapped / injured you can relay these to the emergency services.
6/ In the case of no phone signal you can diall [ 112 ] it will get you through to emergency numbers.

in Germany we have various systems that spring into life when a mobile phone (worn in your pocket) that actually registers your movement doesn’t do so for a while; it sends your GPS-position with an alarm to a company, that if they cannot contact you personally will immediately organize emergency action.
of course works only in areas where mobile signals can be received….

[cousin jack]

Some of us have little choice but to work alone, I have only got work through buying the standing timber, I will fell, extract, split, market, and deliver it, as firewood. I have only started this in the last six months, if I want to make a go of it, I have to do it on my own. I bought a very good experienced horse, I spent some time working with the best horse logger this side of the pond, (and learnt more in that time, than I would have in a year on my own), and the rest of it will come by “getting on and doing it”. At least when you are alone there’s only one to look out for. I do carry a cell phone, and I always know my 6 figure grid reference, the rest of it comes down to be being safe, careful, and when that little voice in your head starts saying, “you should’nt be doing that”, then don’t do it!

[cousin jack]

@CharlyBonifaz 10587 wrote:

in Germany we have various systems that spring into life when a mobile phone (worn in your pocket) that actually registers your movement doesn’t do so for a while; it sends your GPS-position with an alarm to a company, that if they cannot contact you personally will immediately organize emergency action.
of course works only in areas where mobile signals can be received….

Got to say, this sounds like a great idea.

[Author]

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