[Mark Cowdrey]

Quick and cheap.
1X4 S4S pine in the bottom 2 of 3 total open slots in the stock trailer. Left the top one open. Had to joint a couple pieces minimally but basically they fit right in. I secured them with a couple self tapping screws through the pine into the vertical pieces on the trailer. Front compartment only. Blanketed over harness up and back. He was no worse for the wear.
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

@Carl Russell 24420 wrote:

If you have a good scoot, they can often be used right along side the fallen log, and because they pull so easily, can be used quite well on short skids. There is a lot less involved in loading them vs a bobsled…Carl

The scoot sits a few inches lower?? Is that what makes it “less involved” to load? Or is it the binding once you have it loaded?

Thanks,
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

Taylor,
I only use it myself for a few cords of firewood and the occasional sawlog. I have sold a couple dozen to a variety of people. One fellow is using his full time logging and likes it. Another got out 30 (I think) cords of wood with his last winter. So I guess they hold up OK. I believe those two fellows only use it with wheels.
Thanks,
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

Just went out and found two of my horses wandering around the dooryard!:eek:

[Mark Cowdrey]

Tim,
I haven’t had it in anything over probably a foot and a half of snow. Haven’t used it this winter yet. Of course as with anything on snow, it works better when you’ve broken out a trail. Glides along good though.
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

I have had good luck with the Pioneer skiis on the forecart my arch is on. I just posted a picture of it under “Equipment” in the gallery. It does not pivot around as easily as wheels do on a hard surface and you have to watch for stumps and obstacles when turning tight. I find that with a 20 foot chain to reach back in the brush I can get most of what I want. It does draw quite alot easier, especially in snow more than 4 or 5 inches deep. Note the ducktails I added so I could back in snow over 6 or so inches deep.
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

I am wondering whether insurance rules are supervised on the state or federal level. This would bear on the issue of consistency.
As pointed out previously, one of the major roots of our dilemma is insurance and insurance is gunshy because everybody sues everybody. I believe that it is not up to you whether to sue, it is your insurance company that decides, which if you think about it is a little contradictory, an endless game of one-up-manship. So if Bob is working on Pete’s job and has agreed that he is responsible for his own well being and safety, and gets hurt, his (Bob’s) health insurance company is going to sue Pete’s liability insurance company (I think) whether Bob wants them to or not.

What if there was a new model. What if Bob & Pete were insured by the same outfit? Say one sponsored by the Small Farm Conservancy? That way one company is not trying to beat the other. Or is that not the real issue. Is this the stuff Lynn & CO. are talking about?
As Carl sort of mentioned, there are a bunch of folks in central-ish NE who are ready to go if this could be figured out.

I am not discounting Scott’s thoughtful experience based suggestions (thank you), I think there is real, current, value there. Yet there are those who seem to have had different outcomes (or been told different stories by their ins.agents/lawyers) so that there is a bit of a pall of doubt over how useful such a set-up would be if push came to shove.

I am only looking or universal clarity, is that really too much to ask?

Mark

PS I thought I put the icon at the end, I don’t know how it got in the header??

[Mark Cowdrey]

Great discussion with good info both cautionary and positive.
Thanks to all.
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

In our little (850?) operation we came up with the term “Big Sap” for a really good run a couple years ago. Probably that wonderful Light year, ’08. Well yesterday one of my sugarring partners said this year he is looking for a “sapastrophy”! Yeah we’re definitely thinking about it.
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

The new version of Good Forestry in the Granite State is out.
Here is a link:
http://extension.unh.edu/goodforestry/index.htm

It won’t let me copy out of the .pdf version. Check out pp. 56-59.
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

Jason,
Thanks for your considered response. It is helpful to have a frame work, if even just to give a context to begin thinking about the organization.
Thanks,
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

Jim,
Thanks.
Did you make your own plexi panels? Or purchase?
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

Donn,
Is the front tug bulging only when the britchen is “engaged”, i.e. in the act of holding back the load?
The front side strap being too long would not do it but there is a balance between the 2 side straps and the 2 tugs so that the D-ring stays in the correct fore-aft position whether drawing a load or holding back.
As I think about this,
the front tug length controls where the D-ring sits fore & aft when drawing a load. The rear side strap (and the britchen) controls where it sits when holding back. The front side strap, as well as being part of the essential geometry of the D-ring harness (which places the weight of the pole on the horse’s back rather than on this neck), controls how far out in front of the horse the jockey yoke sits.
So if the tugs where the correct length (D-ring where it should be when drawing a load) the front tug would tend to show he same amount of slack when the team is holding back that the rear side strap and britchen show when the team is drawing a load. That slack wants to be enough but minimal to keep the D-ring from tending to shift back and forth.
As a rule of thumb, this is what Les Barden told me about front side strap length; when the horse is not hitched and the strap is hanging, if it is pivoted up towards the collar the end of the fitting should align more or less w the hame ring that the front-side-strap-lazy-strap hangs from. That’s about where I run mine.
As far as where fore and aft the D-ring should sit, my interpretation is that it is behind the front legs far enough so that the belly band, when snug as it should be, does not interfere with the action of the front legs. That is of course reducing to words something that you really need to see to get right. What do others use for eyeballing correct fore-aft D-ring placement?

I think I’ve got the above correct, but others should weigh in if they see an error or disagree.

[Mark Cowdrey]

“I find it a pointless exercise to argue with folks in that mind set and I tend to carry on with what I do.”-Jac

This is where I am a good deal of the time, unless I’m blowing my stack.

Mark
(How do you guys do the “quote from other posts” thing??)

[Mark Cowdrey]

Interesting thread going on over there. Mostly positive though there is one guy from Maine with a wild hair across his ass.

The point of soil compaction from hooves was brought up as a possible negative. I first heard of this as an issue in Positive Impact Forestry, T. McEvoy, Island Press, (2004. p. 143). In a generally positive comment about horse logging as low impact, he writes “… Properly done, this method is considered low impact, although the weight displacement of a horse over four hooves is many times that of a skidder tire, and the hooves are sharp. Multiple passes of a draft horse over some wet forest soils can cause more damage to roots than machines because of the sharp edges on hooves and weight displacement.”
(Does anyone run a skidder w/o chains?)
I find this “fact” to be a red herring when taken out of the context of an overall comparison of horse and mechanized logging. However, this book, in someways seems to me to be a successor/extension of Working With Your Woodland, A Landowner’s Guide, Beattie, Thompson and Levine, revised edition, University Press of New England, 1993. I may be wrong but I suspect that it may be a “go to” referenced by the “uninitiated potential client” community.
McEvoy cites no reference for his claim and I wonder if it is based on any actual research.
Thoughts? I may be jousting at windmills.
Mark

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