25 Years Ago
Late Spring/Early Summer 1979
by Maurice Telleen
published in The Draft Horse Journal, Summer 2004

(Taken entirely from the Summer 1979 issue of The Draft Horse Journal)

On page 3 of same From Lloyd Jentes, Loudonville, Ohio

“I just finished skidding about 10,000 feet of timber with my ‘Percheron skidder’ and planted about 100 acres of oats with my ‘Percheron tractor.’ With hay at 30¢ a bale and gas at $1 per gallon, I believe I can afford to do more of this.”

On page 122 of same From Kansas Field Day

“Howard Johnstone, Centennial Farm, Maple Hill, Kansas, reports that the first Field Day sponsored by the Kansas Draft Horse & Mule Association was a successful beginner. It was held June 2 at Harold Tonn’s place at Haven, Kansas.”

That summer 1979 issue had a cover from one of our favorite spots on this earth - Holmes County, Ohio. Two Belgian mares with their babies are grazing with a field of shocked oats in the background. Those Belgians and those shocks belonged to Leroy Stutzman and the farm is near Sugarcreek, Ohio.

The magazine had just celebrated its 15th birthday, so we had long since gotten over the notion that maybe we were crazy to start it. We had met more people than a candidate for public office and made more friends in more places than we ever expected to.

We think that particular issue is a good one, but that is kind of like having babies. Every one that comes along has something to recommend them. Anyhow, between pages 3 and 122 (see above) there is just too much to mention very much of it. So I’m going to do something quite unconventional and repeat one entire article that I liked very much - with an update from James Bower, Port Angeles, Washington - to see how the last 25 years have treated him.

I liked this article so much at the time because it was the very thing we were hoping would happen, namely that younger people would get interested and carry forward sort of on their own terms and with some new wrinkles. Jim Bower seemed to us to represent all those things. We will use some of the pictures from the original presentation in 1979–plus any he chooses to send us with his update.

So you can forget about the world news, sale results and all the rest from 25 years ago. Just settle back and prepare to meet Jim Bower. I liked him 25 years ago and figure I still would - if I ever saw him again. I think you would too. MT

And here is Jim’s own story about his logging operation, as written 25 years ago:

I thought I would share a little of my personal history before going into detail on my horse logging operation. It might make it easier for people to understand why I’m doing what I am and how I got there.

I was born in Port Angeles, Washington, in 1944 and, except for two years in the Army, have resided there ever since. I was raised on what is known as a “stump farm,” where we had the usual chickens, pigs, a couple of cows and a big garden. My father was a logger, so my training and experience in this field goes back to my earliest memories.

At the age of 13 I traded a Jersey heifer I had raised for an older draft mare and with the used chain saw I bought on the down payment plan, I went into business for myself. I cut four foot pulpwood and used my horse to haul it out of the woods on a sled to where we could load it onto a truck. I did this during summer vacation and holidays until graduating from high school.

For the next ten years I engaged in logging with conventional equipment for this area, such as Caterpillars, rubber-tired log skidders and high lead cable logging. I still use some conventional equipment but on a limited scale and generally hire men to do this end of my business. I prefer to work with the horses and do so about 90% of the time.

Why I decided to change my method of logging is a complex question for me to answer. It is so complex that I won’t attempt to answer it fully, but will say that some of my goals and priorities as to what I feel is important in life have changed. It also seemed to me that because of the hue and cry from environmentalists, that the conventional methods were going to have to change anyhow because of new laws and regulations - and sure enough, they have. This is a topic all of its own and I shouldn’t get into it, but I would like to say just this much. A lot of good has come from this environmentalist movement but as with most “causes,” I think people have gotten overly excited and gone overboard. My concern is with groups and organizations who know very little about the businesses or industries that they are so anxious to regulate. Public concern is a fine thing but it has to be coupled with a day-to-day or nuts and bolts familiarity with the way a business operates. At the risk of getting any further into hot water, I will get back to my reason for changing back to a greater use of horses in my operation.

Last, but not least, in my reasons for switching is that I am fond of these big horses. Now I feel that is a pretty important prerequisite if you are considering working with draft horses. In order to be financially successful in a small business you need to like what you are doing–especially when it involves working with animals.

In my current operation I hire one man to work with me and we use three horses in the woods. My helper drives the single horse and I drive the team. This combination works very well for us in the type of work we do and the conditions under which we work. Most of our work is called selective logging or thinning. Our trees grow so close together that it is necessary to give them more space. As we try to space the trees more evenly, we also remove the diseased ones, the crooked ones, and what we call “understory,” which is a tree that will never mature properly. It is stunted due mostly to the crowded condition of the timber stand. It is the same basic principle used in thinning any type of garden crop, such as my carrots which must be thinned after they come up every year. Where we differ from this analogy is that the trees we remove are, for the most part, able to be commercially utilized.

If the stand of timber were left to grow by itself, nature would eventually thin the trees, but that is a slow process and the trees that are thinned naturally would rot and go to waste - at least, in a commercial sense. We cannot afford that kind of timber management today.

The horses do this type of work better than any type of mechanical equipment because of their agility.

They can move through fairly dense stands, stepping over the mounds of dirt, around trees, over logs, etc., instead of having to plow a road through the woods. Machines also have a lot more potential for damaging the good trees and root systems which are important for future crops.

On a typical day I’ll get up around 5 a.m., feed the horses, do chores, eat breakfast and then load up the three horses and be ready to leave for the woods about 6:45. When we arrive at the job site we spend the first 2-1/2 hours, felling the trees, bucking them up into log lengths, which varies from 20 to 40 feet in length, and building our skid trails for the horses to yard the logs into the landing area.

This yarding or skidding the logs to where they can be loaded on a truck is what we spend the rest of the day doing. Our average production for a day is about 4,000 board feet in log scale. A self-loading log truck will then come in and load and haul our logs to whatever mill I’m selling to. A load of smaller logs will be about 3,500 board feet, so we will get about six truck loads a week.

We use the three horse combination for several reasons. The stands of timber we have in the coastal areas here in the northwest are tremendously varied in size of trees and on any given day we can be working with logs ranging from 6 inch diameters to 4 foot diameters. To yard these larger logs, we use a logging arch–see accompanying pictures. Our trees can be much bigger than this, but this is the limit in size that I regard as practical for horse logging. The bigger the tree, the shorter you cut your log lengths because of weight. Generally the mills won’t buy anything much shorter than 20 feet, and they prefer longer lengths–so we are limited somewhat by their specifications.

My partner starts pulling the smaller logs into the landing area with the single horse and I’ll take the bigger ones with the team. When we get about 200 feet away from our landing area he will pull several of these small logs together into a pile and I’ll use the team to pull them into the landing. After several trips, I’ll stack all the logs into a pile, which we call a coldeck, with a small fork lift.

This is a very efficient method as it keeps both men and horses working constantly, and in any business, it is important to have an even flow.

Another reason I favor the three horse operation is that our woods not only grows trees awful close together, but the ground is also very brushy and rough. It takes a lot of time to cut a trail through for a team, but a good, calm single horse will pick his way through a tangle without too much of a trail having to be built.

I really like selective logging because it is a challenge to try and improve a stand of timber and leave it looking good, from a forestry management point of view. And, of course, it is a real challenge to do this kind of work with those big, loveable animals–draft horses.

I don’t consider my way of logging as “the only way,” but I do feel it has its place and will continue to be considered as one of the many systems that can profitably be used to harvest timber.

This is a pretty generalized article, but I hope it might help explain a little about what we are doing - and why.

That was the “end” in 1979. For the 25 years since then, please see the following.

Jim Bower 25 Years Later “Life Has Been Good.”

Dear Maury,

I did the math and you are correct. It has been 25 years since I wrote that epistle for the DHJ. Life had been good and for that I’m very thankful.

A lot of things are the same, but different; same wife, Kris (39 years), a great companion to walk the path of life with, same children - daughter Lisa and sons, Eric and Monty. And mostly the same friends although some have passed from this life to the next. We go to the same church and I’m still in the logging business, which I still enjoy - most of the time. I continue to put in a “too big” vegetable garden, but I’ve noticed that my kids, grandchildren and neighbors sure like what comes out of it. We still have a few laying hens and there are five hogs awaiting their fate this fall. Out in the field there is a team of Belgians, three riding horses, a pack mule and a donkey we got at six months of age. He is now 30 years old.

So what has changed? The big thing is that I was 35 years old when I wrote the first one and now I’m 60. I’m feeling pretty good that I can still drive a team, run a chain saw and put in a good day’s work despite three knee operations and two on my jaw. Lest I be misunderstood, the latter came from an infected wisdom tooth - not a blow. We now have two daughters-in-law and three grandchildren with another one en route and they are a delight to my heart.

The present team is the fewest draft horses I’ve had in a long time. One of my favorite teams called Buck and Blue died, Buck in 2002 and Blue in 2003 at 28 and 29 years of age. Blue was born on our farm and I bought Buck at the Waverly Auction as a colt. I used them right up to their last couple of years and this is where they are buried. I’d like to replace them with a young team, or even colts, but am in no hurry to do so.

We’ve had up to a dozen Belgians on the place at one time, but that was when we had that cheap labor called children. None of our kids enjoyed the horses as much as I did although they did learn how to care for and work with them. With the grandkids coming on, who knows? But here’s hoping. I’ve had a lifelong love affair with them, but two teams is all I either have time and use for or want at this point.

Another big change is that both of our sons now work with me in our logging operation. However, they work only in the mechanized part of it. For over the last 40 years, I’ve had equipment operating in the woods. Sometimes it was very small, at other times bigger. For about 15 years I was able to keep the equipment operation small with a very good man in charge. This enabled me to work pretty much full time with my horses doing the tree thinning operation, which I really enjoyed, and fully planned on doing that my whole working life.

But the changes that came to our business were enormous, resulting in massive closure of mills and a reduction in loggers. It produced a lot of anger and plenty of pain in our small rural communities. I bring this up because I was working with the U.S.D.A. Forest Service and buying a lot of small timber sales and using my horses to make my living. Then the hue and cry went up from the environmental movement - remember the Spotted Owl? I guess he liked to nest in old growth timber. So the Forest Service timber sales program died in this area and there went the work.

Because of these changes, I had to shift to more mechanized logging and contract with some of the big private timber companies in our area. But I always kept some Belgians and tried to do a certain amount with them in small private timber stands. Interestingly enough, I did do some thinning last year (2003) on a Forest Service sale, the first in 15 years and they loved it. They brought out all kinds of people to watch, take pictures and ask questions. It was all brand new to most of them so I dug out my old pictures to prove to them that we had just reinvented the wheel.

My sons, both with young families, have asked me what I think of the future of logging. I’ve told them I believe it offers them a good future, but to expect changes, both good and bad, just as I have experienced.

But as for logging itself, don’t worry about that until they come up with another “renewable resource.” That is what we are working with, something renewable. The American public uses literally thousands of products that are derived from our timber lands. I also believe it is in the realm of possibility that someday my sons, and others, will be using horses in the woods again. Probably not in a wholesale fashion, but in spot situations and on small tracts, both private and public. It could well be another of these cycles we go through.

I’ve enclosed a couple more up-to-date pictures. For one thing, I’m 25 years older, it’s a different generation of Belgians and I’ve designed and built some new equipment.

Here is a fairly old one, showing my two sons who would ride for hours as I plowed with this two way plow.
Here are a couple prints of a log forwarder, which I designed, had built, and it works very well. It has a small winch, a moveable gantry, a pivoting bunk and a pivoting tongue. It is transported on this flatbed to the logging site.