Nigh Ox Newsletter

December 2001

Draft Animal Logging - Dream Acres

By Todd Juzwiak

The echoing gunshots from the opening day of deer season were answered with the crashing of trees. A beautiful sunny Saturday brought out 5 students, a couple of volunteers and Dan Rasmussen with his team of Belgians to participate in DreamAcres first logging workshop. After a warm-up with driving lessons and snaking a log through the obstacle course, the horses were dripping sweat through their winter coats. Although shy of "those big horns", students managed to work up a 'sweat' on Atlas and Hercules, too.
After explaining safety, sawing, and precision, Dan and his horses demonstrated skidding logs out of the woods. We were all impressed by the skillful power and dangerous work required. Appropriately, we finished by learning how to "buck" and scale logs. In the end, we thanked Dan "deerly".