Cargo Gear Sled Review

My son was using one of our Pelican Gear sleds this morning to haul hay to the cows. We have had two of these sleds for about ten years. We bought them at Dunham's sporting goods store near Johnstown Pennsylvania. I think they were about $50 a piece back then. Probably a bit more today, but I'm pretty sure they still make them, an I know they have been very useful on the farm in the winter.

I initially bought them to haul logs out of the wood when I was cutting deadfall wood in the winter time. This makes me think that I may ahve had them for a bit more than 10 years, because when we first moved out to the mountains I did not know how much snow we would get, and how much wood I would burn, so I used to load my chainsaw, axe, sledge, wedges, gas, oil, etcectera into this sled and just pull it into the woods looking for wood.

There were a lot of old oak trees killed by gypsy moths in the seventies still standing or down on the ground, and I would cut them down and up and haul the wood out to the house, and burn it when it was still frozen. It would hiss for a while when I put it onto the red coals in the wood burner.

I haven't gathered wood like that for a long time. However, as you can see the sleds still get used a lot. For a while I would stuff three Brute garbage cans into the one designated as the garbage sled and pull it up our quarter mile drive to the curb, and then ride down in the sled through the field to the house. I still occasionally do this if my cart that I hook up to the Suburban can't make it up the driveway due to deep snow.

The other sled was designated as the wood sled, and it was used in the woods to gather logs and kindling which we stored in the barn.

Nowadays, one sled is known as the wood sled. It is primarily loaded up with logs that are stored in the barn and taken down to the porch to use in the woodburner in the family room. We pretty much heat the whole house with wood. We supplement it a bit with baseboard electric heaters. The other sled is used for hay and feed for the cows, as seen in the video.

These sleds have been well worth the money. They are durable and can haul a good load of wood. The ropes are strong and have never broken or pulled through after years of use.

Wood Ashes in the Winter Garden

I have a good supply of wood ashes from heating our home with a woodburner so I try to find ways to use them around the farm. One way to use some wood ash is in the garden.

First, don't just indiscriminately use them as they will harm some acid-loving plants like raspberries and blueberries, potatoes, tomatoes etc... . However they are helpful for some plants, especially those that like a neutral or slightly basic soil.

Also, I only use wood ashes. No garbage or coal or whatever. My wood is what my son cuts and splits on our property, so I know what it is and where it comes from.

The way that I distribute the ashes is I just pull our ash pan out of the wood burner, and let it cool down somewhere for a while. Then I walk out to the row or spot that I want the ashes, and I just tip it as I walk along to make a fairly even coating of ash. Sometimes I dump a pan or several pans depending on what plant I am taking care of. Make sure you know which way the wind blows when doing this.

I always add wood ashes to the spot in the garden in which I am going to plant my sweet peas. I coat the ground with the ashes after I till it and then just let them soak in for a few weeks or days depending on the weather. I used to have trouble with peas because our soil is naturally acidic, but an Amish friend of mine told me about using wood ashes years ago, and since then I've always had nice crops of peas if the rabbits don't get them.

I put ashes around my rhubarb plants each winter or spring. I just spread them around the crowns, where you can see the plant coming up. I never cover the plant. I spread it around fairly thickly. I also add some cow manure later on to the rhubarb.

Asparagus beds also benefit from the ashes. I spread them around the beds like I do with the peas, not real thickly. I also put some cow manure down for the asparagus.

I put some ashes between the rows in my strawberries. I don't put them on top of the plants. I also put leaves between the rows on top of the ashes after the ashes have washed into the soil a bit. I usually don't completely cover the strawberries with the leaves, but I really heap the leaves up around them.

The last place I use them is around the black walnut tree. I just dump out the ash pans around the tree within the drip line of the branches. I don't pay much attention to amount with the walnut trees because they are large and can take a lot of the ashes. I don't coat the whole ground around them, but I probably put 5 to 10 pans of ash around a large tree throughout the course of the winter.

Well I am going to end here. I have to provide taxi service for one of my children in a few minutes. I'm trying to restart this blog, and this is the first post in a while.  I'm pretty busy so I expect the posts are going to be a bit shorter, but hopefully they will still be worth reading.
Jim