Nigh Ox Newsletter

December 2001

Draft Animal Logging at Dream Acres

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 as well.

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 of the teams and the potential danger of the work. Appropriately, we finished by learning how to "buck" and scale logs. In the end, we thanked Dan "deerly".