” It does take a bit longer working with horses than tractors, but it’ s just a more enjoyable, peaceful way of working,”
Logging with Horses
~ by Chrissy Alspaugh
Dean Manuel is being very literal when he describes his employees as workhorses.
His trio of Percheron draft horses are his muscle— whether the day’ s work entails hauling thousands-of-pounds logs out of clients’ woods to his portable sawmill, or just pulling a sickle bar mower to cut grass on the family farm.
“ It does take a bit longer working with horses than tractors, but it’ s just a more enjoyable, peaceful way of working,” Manuel said.“ And they absolutely love to be in the harness. They get pretty antsy just grazing out in the field. Every morning, they’ re ready to go pull or plow or whatever the day’ s chore is.”
For generations, his family’ s chores have been aided by equines. He readily shares stories of his ancestors’ lives in Brown
” It does take a bit longer working with horses than tractors, but it’ s just a more enjoyable, peaceful way of working,”
— Dean Manuel
County since the Civil War, using horses and mules for farming, logging, and working in coal mines. The work was significantly harder back then. Manuel recently received an ancestor’ s tally book from the late 1800s, detailing the number of railroad ties he handsawed and drove by horse and wagon to Brownstown to sell to the railroad. photo by Chrissy Alspaugh
Manuel’ s story comes full-circle with his wife, April, now running a large sawmill in Norman, Indiana that cuts a great deal of railroad ties. And several of their five adult children are involved with their horsepower-driven farm, running the portable sawmill, working at April’ s mill, or helping clients turn freshly-cut lumber into heirloom furniture.
Today, tractors stand to make much of Manuel’ s work nearly effortless. But that efficiency comes with a price. Many property owners who have had larger-than-life logging equipment raze their forests are left with land that is devastated for decades.
In contrast, Manuel’ s horses nimbly weave logs around surrounding saplings, and the only evidence the team leaves of being in a woods are some footprints, slight marks where they dragged logs, and, inevitably, some manure.
20 Our Brown County July / August 2017