Posts Tagged ‘chipper’
Last Thing
There was one last thing I’ve been wanting to do in the paddock before the winter weather sets in for good this season. When we had the fences installed to create our two paddock spaces, the smaller side encompassed two trees. There was a gorgeous willow tree with a cottonwood close beside it.
It didn’t take long for both trees to show evidence of not being entirely happy about the new arrangement, but the willow has at least continued to show signs of life. The cottonwood gave up in the first year. It has been standing dead for quite a while now and the small branches from it have started to litter the ground with increasing frequency.
The tree makes a convenient scratching post for the horses, so I have no interest in cutting it down. I just wanted to cut off the branches and leave the snag for birds to perch on and horses to rub against.
Mark this one off as “Done.”
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Bringing all those branches down created quite a pile that needed to be dealt with. I tend to overlook that detail when I get all fired up to trim our trees. Cutting branches down ends up being a small part of the whole project.
Luckily, George was available to help and I opted to try chipping them without delay. The other option was to move the pile somewhere and save the chipping for a future opportunity. That could lead to a lot of chances for procrastination, so I felt pretty good about taking quick action on this occasion.
I cranked up both the ATV and the diesel tractor, attached a trailer to the former and the chipper to the latter and away we went. Parking the trailer beside the chipper allowed us to fill it directly from the chute and save any extra handling to convert a pile of branches into chips unloaded in our convenient storage location by the labyrinth.
That leaves me about as ready as I’ve ever been for freezing temperatures and oodles of snow to arrive for winter. Unfortunately, the weather continues to run warmer than normal and the precipitation we are getting is all rain.
Do they make galoshes for snowshoes? I might have to get me some of those so I can do some trekking in all this rain.
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Trail Upgrade
One of the best purchases I have made since we moved here is that wood chipper that runs off the PTO of the diesel tractor. Not only has it given us a way to get rid of the never-ending accumulations of tree branches, it is also providing a treasure trove of wood chips for landscape projects and trail maintenance.
I had a large pile of chips in the back pasture last fall that didn’t get distributed before it got buried in snow, and I have wanted to get it moved ever since it reappeared this spring. The recent rains have turned areas of our trail through the woods into swamp mud and we’re hoping a covering of wood chips will make it much less messy to cross, so that is providing additional motivation.
Yesterday, I landed a perfect combination of being home during the day, while it wasn’t raining, with time available, when the ATV was in working order. I made 3 trips from the pile to the wettest spot in the woods before switching to other more time-sensitive jobs.
Like mowing the grass. It has doubled in height in the 4 days since I last cut it. With rain predicted for today, I wanted to have that mowing completed in advance, to avoid it doubling another time before I could get to it.
There’s still half a pile of chips left, so I plan to return soon to covering the muddiest sections of trail with that, until it runs out. At that point, I will need to get out the trusty chipper again and make more piles of trail cover out of the multiple collections of branches that lie in wait.
It’s definitely a win-win situation!
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Relative Something 