Join MOFGA’s Low-Impact Forestry Project in Bethel, Maine, for a weekend intensive focusing on the practices and principles of managing a woodlot with draft horses.

 In this entirely hands-on workshop, students and instructors will work in an actively managed woodlot to help achieve the goals of the management plan. Students will spend most of their time with hands on the lines, honing their horsemanship and logging skills.

The weekend will also include instruction on basic woodlot management theory, the finances of working with draft animals, wood processing, wood markets and incorporating the woodlot into the farm.

Tracey Wilkerson and John Plowden will lead the workshop. Wilkerson directs the Farm and Forest Program at Gould Academy in Bethel. She is passionate about working with saddle and draft horses and demonstrates the subtleties of working with large animals each year at MOFGA’s Common Ground Country Fair. She brings her years of experience as a professional educator and talented horsewoman to bear as she guides students through the process of learning to communicate with their horses. She and her husband, Peter Hedden, are generously making their farm and woodlot available for this workshop.

John Plowden has been working with draft animals for nearly 20 years. A professional horse logger, he does most of his work in western Maine and in the Unity area. Plowden pairs his logging career with manufacturing modern horse-logging equipment, including arches, sleds and forwarders. He leads several horse and logging training workshops throughout Maine and offers private instruction for draft horse work. Plowden vocally supports sustainable forestry practices in Maine and advocates for the role of draft animals in modern society. He and his family live in Stow, where they garden and raise small livestock.

A limited opportunity exists for students to bring their own horse(s) to this workshop for one-on-one instruction. If you are interested in doing so, please contact MOFGA’s forestry coordinator, Andy McEvoy, at [email protected].

Please register at www.mofga.org. All registrants are expected to have completed the Low-Impact Forestry Level I course or be able to demonstrate equivalent experience with working draft horses and forestry.

If you have any questions about the Low-Impact Forestry Project course offerings, please visit the Low-Impact Forestry page at www.mofga.org or contact MOFGA’s event coordinator, Emily Horton, at [email protected].