Rural Heritage June/July 2025

to work with, not bulky on the winch, and my girls haven’t been able to break it. Eventually it will fray, but at a cost of about $7 total, not per foot, I carry a spare in the toolbox. My buddy Tim taught me to carry a curved 2-foot rod on the cart. One end is hooked. When the butt end of a stick is firm in the dirt, the rod can be worked underneath it to pull the chain through. A chain saw bracket takes up such a small space it is left on the cart all the time. Most of these features are small preferences for convenience. To be able to lift one end of a stick off the ground – to be able to lift it from in front of the axle – and to be able to lift it clear from the draw bar seem to me to be the main difference between a general-purpose farm cart and a firewood arch. Video footage of Bob explaining many of the forecart features and construction details is available on our enhanced digital edition offered online. To introduce this new online version of the magazine, we are making it free for this issue. The new digital edition also has 12 extra pages not included in the print edition. To view the free sample issue, visit www.ruralheritage.com.

June/July 2025

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