The summer has almost come and gone before we’ve had a chance to take a breath and enjoy it. But I’ve gotten a good amount of work done so far this summer with Jake, my Suffolk Punch draft horse. Jake came to us as a nine month old colt, with few manners other than being halter trained. He was weaned from his mother at nine months and gelded at a year and he’s grown into a strong, intelligent horse. I trained Jake for work on our farm and he’s been working since he was three years old. In the last two years, he’s pulled out most of our firewood each year and many logs for the various building projects on the farm, dragged pastures and hayfields, and harrowed our garden each spring and fall.
In the next couple years, we’d like to expand our vegetable garden to grow more carrots, winter squash and pumpkins for the horses and chickens. Our goal is to arrange the garden area so I can do more of the work with horses -- cultivate, hill and dig potatoes, and possibly spread manure, in addition to the soil preparation I already do with Jake in the spring and fall. Once our other young Suffolk gelding, Charley, has grown and I’ve trained him for work as well, we’ll team him with Jake. We have a forecart and manure spreader waiting and plan to log, tedd and rake hay, drag pastures, and spread manure with the team. And who knows what else might develop once we have a steady, strong young team for the farm?
Jake has done a great deal of work for us as a single horse. We cut about 8 cords of firewood for our own use each year, and Jake pulls in the large majority, if not all, of this wood for my husband, Rob, to split and stack. He has also pulled in a great number of the logs from our woods that we’ve had milled to build some of the shelters and barns on our farm -- horse shelter, chicken coop, hay barn and “cow palace.” The current project this summer is a 38’ x 48’ equipment barn to house our hay wagons, haying equipment, tractor and other equipment.
We need to mill about 100 4” x 6” rafters and 40 2x4’s to build the barn. The log needed for a 4x6 rafter is 14 or16 feet and 7-10 inches in diameter at the small end. A 2x4 log is 12 feet by 5-6 inches at the small end. We’re cutting spruce and fir. My goal with Jake is to pull in 100 logs by the day the sawyer arrives, the great majority being rafter logs. Hopefully, many of the trees won’t be a long pull for each log, but given the distance between our woods and the site where the sawyer will mill the logs, Jake will need to pull many of the logs quite a long distance. We’ve been very impressed by Jake’s strength and the size of the logs he can pull without too much effort. He’s able to pull any of the biggest logs we need. Horse logging in the summer can be a bigger challenge for the horse than in the winter because the friction created by pulling a log over the bare ground is much greater than pulling over snow. But Jake consistently buckles down and pulls with steady, even strength.
Working a horse in the woods offers a lot of advantages for us over the tractor. Jake can move through tight places and over brush and leave a barely noticeable trail. The path he needs to get to a log is much narrower than a tractor needs. And there’s no comparison between the fuel costs (diesel vs. grass) and the emissions. I deeply appreciate the quiet, sweet-smelling, even pace of working with Jake, compared to the noisy, smelly tractor. While I grant the tractor its power and speed compared to a horse, there is no question that a horse’s impact in the woods is profoundly lighter than a tractor.
Another advantage to working with Jake in the woods becomes clear when Rob is cutting trees in an area with a dense stand of trees. If a tree doesn’t fall clean and is hung up a little with its butt end on the ground, we’ve been able to pull the tree clear with the horse. Jake can work in a tight space without the need to cut a lot of trees to maneuver in. And then he can work his way out of the area leaving little sign that he was there. My work with Jake frees Rob to concentrate on cutting and limbing trees so we can get a lot more work done than if all the logs were hauled out with the tractor.
Jake has proven to be an exceptional woods horse. He moves without hesitation or any fear over rough ground, through tight spaces with branches brushing his head and body, turning in a very narrow area to stand quiet and still as I hitch him to a log. He isn’t bothered by new, unfamiliar places or sounds and has grown completely accustomed to the chainsaw screaming very close by or starting up just behind him. Jake is smart, calm, strong, willing, and very friendly -- I couldn’t ask for a better or more personable work companion.