Author Archives: Steve Mays

I purchased a chipper shredder

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My first brush with brush dates back to 2015 and I’ve cut and hauled (or had hauled) a lot of it since then. I’m constantly asked, “Why don’t you burn it?” Can you say forest fire? No thanks. There’s lots of video here of crews from Korte Tree Service chipping up my brush piles and while I knew they made small chippers for home use, I just never made the leap.

According to a whole bunch of YouTube videos, this one can chip branches up to 3 inches in diameter. That would take care of about 80% of my scrub cedar trees. The manual said run the engine for 3 hours to “break it in” and following that we shredded some hydrangea clippings.

The chipper is damned heavy but it rolls pretty easily so my plan is to take it down into the woods a way, closer to where I’ll be cutting, and chip those rascals up on-site. No more dragging up the hill, stacking, loading into the pickup and hauling off to a friends property who burns them for me.

Before taking the chipper into the woods, I ran a couple of scrub cedar trees through to see if it could eat a 3 inch tree. I’d say 2.5 inches is a big as it can handle. I also learned I need to trim the trunk of limbs.

The most surprising thing I’ve discovered is just how small the pile of chips is. Photo below is from two small trees.

This afternoon I’m heading into the woods to drop and stack a bunch of small cedar trees. Tomorrow I’ll roll the chipper as close to the pile as I can get it and start chipping.

Blocking spam calls and texts

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Like everyone else, I am constantly bombarded by telephone spam calls. Blocking the numbers does no good because they have an infinite number of bogus phone numbers.

Yesterday I downloaded AT&T’s ActiveArmor app (free) and it has been blocking calls that previously got through. One spammer used a dozen different numbers within a matter of seconds.

BBQ Gun

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(Urban Dictionary) “An old term from the Southwest that refers to a gun that is not worn daily. It won’t have the scratches, wear marks, etc a daily wear gun would have. These guns were not something that were never used or “useless.” In the time the term came about they were functional guns (sometimes, heavily modified for better accuracy/reliability/etc) that might have some custom engraving, polishing, or custom grips. They didn’t make many guns purely for show – they made guns to use and users modified them for show. They were normally worn in tooled leather holsters as opposed to daily wear holsters – which were plain.”

“In the revolver days (before semi-auto pistols) a church gun was a normal firearm as described above. After the semi-auto pistols arrived on scene this term applied to mostly Colt 1911’s. Current times this can apply to any firearm that has custom work designed to enhance mainly appearance and, much of the time – functionality.”

“However, this should not be confused with a (today’s term) “bling gun” – which can imply that the gun is more for show than effectiveness. Or that the user is not proficient in its use because it is only worn on special occasions.”