Website copy:"About"

Back in 1976, in Greaney, about 35 miles north of Hibbing, a city kid with a bachelor's degree in English and Theatre Arts, I bought an 1100 lb. green-broke Morgan/Quarter Horse named Ben from Nick Shermer for $150. I found harness at an auction for 30 bucks. Ben and I started learning together how to drive and skid logs for firewood and pine logs for a house I built there.

Each winter, and some springs and falls since then, Ben and a number of other horses I've owned, caretaken, or borrowed, have cut and skidded firewood, cabin logs, sawlogs, and even some pulpwood. Ol' Ben, who was 5 when I bought him, lived to be 29 years old, and died a few years ago. He spent his retirement years with some great old friends of mine near Orr. Ben was probably the nicest horse I ever owned, rode, or drove.

If the timber I'm cutting isn't too scattered in the stand, or too small in diameter to require it, I usually prefer to skid logs with a team. Most of the time, I have a horse that works well to drive single, but they all are trained to work well together in pairs, and get a lot of experience cutting and thinning all kinds of trees. I bring them to the site in a trailer, but if the project is ongoing far away or will last more than a week, I like to find an area where a temporary electric fence can be installed in a place where there's a windbreak and access to water. This is usually done before the frost sets in, since I have to drive some posts in the ground for the fence. There is usually no charge to set that up.

I prefer to do most of the skidding in the winter, since the logs I saw for lumber are a lot easier to cut when they are clean. The soils in the woods remain undisturbed this way, and it's generally all around easier for me and the horses to do heavy woodswork when it's cold outside and there are no bugs. The limbs and brush are leafless then and don't get in the way for skidding.

I am currently loading and piling logs with a 1999 Case 1840 diesel skidsteer (like a Bobcat)which needs a place to plug in, with pallet forks and a dirt bucket for when there is snow or dirt to move. Hauling is available from local truckers if the sawlogs and/or pulpwood are being sold elsewhere. They usually charge by the load or by the hour.

Charges are by the hour presently at $40/ hour for the team (skidding time in harness) and the same for metered time on the skidsteer (a good deal .) Time I spend doing chainsaw work felling, limbing swamping and bucking goes at the rate of $25/ hour, and I am real willing to work with anyone else who wants to take some of that off my hands.

A cleared space for landing your logs is also required, level or on a gentle slope adjacent to a road or winter road for access with a truck, unless all timber is to remain on site, approximately 50' longX40' wide, alongside that road, with another such space for landing in case there are different lengths, thicknesses or species to sort. If any brush-clearing or leveling of the landing site is required before freeze-up, my skidsteer is available for such improvements.

Beautyway Horselogging also owns and operates a Woodmizer 16 foot portable bandsaw for making great lumber or timbers, suitable for framing, right on your site or ours. Charges for this service also are currently made at a rate of $40/hour, running time on the saw, and that's not expensive.

I am also available for summertime skidsteer work such as minor excavation, loading and unloading palletized freight, timbers, logs, or lumber, moving hay and manure. Does your pasture need to be cleaned up this year?

If you are clearing a homesite and/or clearing a road, don't let them push all the good stuff up in a pile and burn it! If you want to harvest firewood, logs, lumber, or timbers from your land, please consider doing it the Beautyway! Please give me a call or email if you have any questions. I thank you, and my horses thank you. Marco Good