Posts Tagged ‘brush pile’
Chippin’ Brush
With the lawn mowed and the piles of composting manure all in order, yesterday I was able to focus my attention on changing brush piles into wood chips. Once again, I found myself processing several preliminary steps to reach the point of being able to start working on the primary thing I intended to do.
I decided to let the chipper create a pile on the ground, so before I started chipping, I wanted to cut the long pasture grass down to the ground at the location where I would make the pile. I planned to use the Stihl trimmer to do that, but first I needed to change from a metal blade to nylon line for the job.
Next, I needed to solve the problem of a missing pin on one of the stabilizing arms of the 3-point hitch, before I could move the tractor and chipper down to the designated spot. When I was putting the tractor away after the last time I used it, I noticed the stabilizing arm was hanging loose, and the pin that was supposed to be holding it in place was missing.
It was a long shot, but I decided to look for the pin down near the spot where I had noticed the chipper swinging wider than normal when I was driving to put it away last time. I figured the unusual behavior probably started happening soon after the pin fell out. It was a little worse than looking for a needle in a hay stack, so I didn’t look for long.
I borrowed a pin from the ATV snow-plow blade, and was on my way. It was another beautiful day, and I remembered to take a photo before I started chipping, so I would have a comparison for how it would look afterwards. Little did I realize that it would also provide reference of how the beautiful day later turned gray in a matter of about an hour.
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I started working by myself, pulling branches from the pile and feeding them into the chute of the chipper, but soon recognized how much quicker it would be to have another person helping. Elysa and friends had come over for the afternoon, so I took a short break for lunch to see them, checked in with Cyndie, and mentioned I could use an assistant.
They were generous enough to come to my aid after they completed doing some exercises with the horses. Extra hands made a big difference, turning that pile of branches into chips in less than half the time it would have taken me on my own at the pace I was going.
It brought to mind this: I completely understand why farm families benefit from having a lot of children.
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Fighting Frustration
I know that I can just give in and stop trying to make progress when barriers repeatedly frustrate my attempts to advance toward a goal, but I seem to have an ingrained attachment to that angst of repeatedly banging my head against the problems that arise. Eventually, I will go back to grazing, but for now…
Yesterday was a day to give up and go back to bed, but I forged ahead regardless, and bashed headlong into the fruitless exercise of trying to get something done anyway. It probably wasn’t as bad as I’m making it seem, but the final straw was trying to write this post live online when our internet connection was doing an endless dance loop of resetting, creating a repeating pattern of pages hanging mid-load, and slamming the brakes on any attempts to actually achieve something productive.
Talk about frustrating! We were trying to research costs for materials for our next phase of pasture fencing, to compare with the quote we have received from our fence contractor. We also got stopped in the middle of trying to do online research for information on improving the surface of our paddocks.
The reason we were indoors doing research is because it is raining outside again. Speaking of frustration, the rain gauge revealed 2 more inches fell overnight Sunday to Monday morning. The wetness around here is crazy-making!
Since I couldn’t work on anything else, I walked right down to the wettest area of our planned grazing pasture —probably out of spite— where two dead trees had toppled over in the storm that destroyed my woodshed (I think the woodshed failure is frustrating me more than I am admitting to myself), and I started cutting them up and creating a new brush pile. Man, will it feel good to ignite that bonfire. Too bad it will have to wait for months because the pile is currently located on an area of standing water.
I let my focus wander to the drainage ditch that forms the southern border of our property, where the water of the last few storms is still flowing along in an irritatingly pleasant manner. Standing in water up to my ankles, I began the work of cutting out the 1-to-2 inch volunteer trees that were allowed to grow unchecked to clutter the ditch, making a perfect snow-stop that creates dams and backs up flow during the spring melt.
The plan is to clear the ditch, and the junk trees that have been sprouting in the area just above it, because above is where we will run the southern leg of our new grazing pasture fence.
While I was down there working, our delightful dog, Delilah, was happily exploring to and fro, prancing in the running water, and generally being a sweet companion… until she wasn’t. She disappeared on me while I was engrossed in aggravating the tendonitis in both elbows, working our ratcheting pruner to cut down the forest of unwelcome growth.
After Delilah’s performance on Sunday —moments after I had received a subtle comment from our neighbor about her frequent visits to his place— where she ran away from me to interrupt that very family’s Mother’s Day picnic on their front lawn, she has me so frustrated that I have decreed that she must be on-leash now when outside and not being directly watched.
It’s all got me plenty frustrated, I tell you, but the regression to need to leash Delilah again is at the top of the heap.
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Relative Something 