Horsing around: Tom, Maggie clear trees in Wilton

Thursday, April 22, 2010

By JESSIE SALISBURY

Correspondent

WILTON – Using horses for logging is ecologically friendlier than the usual use of mechanical skidders – there’s much less disturbance of the ground, particularly on hillsides and in small lots.

Hiring Mike Guay, of Greenfield, and his team to remove the several dozen trees the state decreed had to go made sense to Wilton’s water commissioners. The area to be cleared around the old reservoir on Putnam Hill Road is a steep bank, and the trees that were to be removed were near the water.

Guay and his crew did just that on April 17 in spite of a light rain. That crew includes several men; Guay’s 10-year-old daughter, Taylor; and two big blond horses, Tom and Maggie.

“I never officially did logging on my own, just with my dad,” Guay said while readying his horses. “I just do small jobs like this one.”

The horses were used singly to drag, or “snake,” each log from the brook side to the road, eliminating the need to cut a real road and leaving little mark on the ground. The logs were stacked beside the road for trucking.

Guay has owned Tom for about four years, he said, and Maggie for just over a year. Both horses had been injured, and he’s rehabilitating them.

“I use them for the log skidding event at the fairs,” he said, since neither horse is up to the pulling events.

“This is a learning curve for Maggie,” he added of the job at hand. “She’s never been in the woods before, just at the fairs.”

Guay belongs to a log-skidding club, a sport that’s growing. He said there were “27 pairs of horses at Hopkinton Fair last year.”

The event requires more skill on the part of the horses and drivers than the conventional pull, which is mainly a show of strength. The horses pull a log along the ground through a series of cones.

“They also have plowing contests at places like Stonewall Farm in Keene,” Guay said. “That would be something different – I’ve never plowed a field.”

In addition to small jobs and fairs, Guay provides hayrides from his home in Greenfield.

Guay said he grew up with horses, and that he was about 15 when he started helping his father, Maurice.

“He’s been working with horses for maybe 65 years,” Guay said.

The elder Guay, now 82, spent much of his younger life as a logger and competed in horse-pulling contests for more than 50 years.

He supervised the contests at the Hillsborough County Agricultural Fair in New Boston and other fairs for many years.

He currently is manager of the Wilton Recycling Center.

Taylor is the newest member of the family to get involved. On Saturday, she groomed the horses and helped harness them, managing the harnesses that weighed almost as much as she does.

While she sometimes drives the team, she didn’t help with the work at the reservoir because of the steepness of the terrain.

Taylor is the one who cares for Tom’s feet.

“I put the oil (on his hoofs) night and morning,” she said of work she does in addition to grooming. She added, “Maggie sheds the most.”

Guay said Tom is essentially flat-footed in front because of an injury and special care has to be taken with shoes and where he works.

Putting on the oil is “like putting oil on an old pair of boots to soften them up,” he said.

Working the horses regularly is essential to their health and training, Guay said. He’s looking for a few more small jobs.