Updates from up north

We haven’t done much horselogging this week. The first day some potential horseloggers came by and we (Rolf, not me) talked to them for a while. On Tuesday after lunch, the horses decided to strike. The weather here is quite warm, so there is shit loads of water in the forest, and the horses refused to cross a creek into the forest so we couldn’t do any skidding. Penny even fell on her bum in the creek, which she didn’t like. On Wednesday, the weather was really bad and too windy to do any logging, so Rolf and I just repaired feeders at the barn. Betty was around us all the time while we were building her feeder, which was quite interesting. She didn’t mind the hammering, but got scared by the chainsaw. Yesterday we did get to do some proper horselogging. I got to use the chainsaw for a bit to de-limb some trees, and then I did lots of skidding with Skip and Lady. It is quite hard work, but going up hill the horses almost pull you up with them. I did have rather a lot of problems getting them to turn around on the landing and go back down into the forest. They just didn’t wanna do what I was trying to tell them to, which is also probably because I don’t know what I am doing yet. I have today (Friday), Saturday and Sunday off. But apparently I am supposed to feed the horses on the weekend as well, which I did not know was part of the deal. No way am I going in to a pen with five hungry big horses. Someone else will have to deal with that instead.
And I just wanted to mention how beautiful my walk to work was yesterday. It was cold and clear and fresh snow and lots of animal tracks I could follow. It was very nice and calm. I hope it wasn’t the hybrid dog/wolf that had got loose……

The random picture is a mousetrap haliburton style