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Moving big rocks with new winch

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The 20 page owners manual (yes, I’m one of those people) for my WARN cordless winch recommended “practicing” with the winch before getting into a real use situation. I guess that means you can pick the terrain and the size and shape of the object to be moved/lifted.

For my practice session I decided to move a couple of big rocks and use them to protect our new well head from the sleepy garbage truck drivers who turn around in our cul-de-sac.

The winch only has 15 feet of cable, which makes sense given its speed and “use cycle” (two minutes of pulling has to be followed by 30 min of downtime to avoid over-heating). So that means extra straps and re-sets if you’re pulling any distance. I anchored the winch to my pickup.

One of today’s first lessons was the importance of securing the strap. Took me a couple of tries.

In the photo below you see my Bubba Rope towing rope and soft shackle. I bought these for the Land Rover and never used them for that purpose. Yet. The idea behind the soft shackle is in the unlikely event it breaks, you won’t get the shrapnel you’d get from a metal device. But my shackle won’t break.

I tried moving a smaller rock using the sled but the weight was too much and I wound up using the strap on this as well.

Will have to wait on a front-loader for the big rock. Too much for the winch (and winch operator). We’ll probably add some more camouflage around the well-head down the road.

What did I learn today? For some chores it will be easier to hook a strap to the pickup (in 4 wheel drive). As for my intended use of pulling the wood chipper back up the hill, I expect I’ll do some manually rolling where the grade is not too steep, augmented by the winch.

Moving chipper down the hill

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The idea is to get the chipper closer to the trees and brush that needs chipping, thereby reducing the amount of dragging, much of it uphill. When it gets cold I’ll have to put the chipper indoors. Depending how far down the hill I’m working getting it back up the hill with the winch will be much easier than my dragging it (maybe). At least that’s the theory.

The winch has 15 feet of cable so coming up the hill will take some time. In the sketch above I have the winch attached to the chipper (as opposed to the tree) so I can control the speed and steady the chipper as it creeps up the incline..

Hiking trail progress

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I’ve fallen into something of a routine. One day of cutting and dragging trees/brush; one day of chipping; and one day of lining the path-to-be with rocks and spreading cedar chips.

The rock work would be quite the chore but for the fact I’m never more than an arm’s reach from a rock. Lots of rocks. Tomorrow is chipping day.

Hiking trail project revived

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I started playing with the idea of cutting some walking path through our woods back in May of this year. The project stalled out when I realized how much brush and how many cedar trees would have to be hauled off, one pickup load at a time. The alternative was a whole bunch of brush piles somewhere on our property. Either option was proving exhausting.

The recent addition of a wood chipper has breathed new life into the project. I quickly had enough chips to cover the first path and today I started a second leg, mainly to have some place to put the chips. Now I can cut and chip with abandon.

UPDATE: The photo below was taken a day later, from the other end of the path-in-progress. Difficult to see here but making progress. It’s not unrealistic that I might be able to create a mile of paths, given enough time.

Perfect October Day

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Surounded by trees, we don’t get spectacular sunrises and sunsets. We just don’t get much of a horizon. But we do have a tiny vista, looking down our road to the hills just on the other side of the Missouri River. It’s so quiet we can hear approaching vehicles — few and far between if you don’t count neighbors — from far down the hill.

When the sun does shine through the trees in the late afternoon, we get some flattering light. My friend John says this was taken using the Old Man filter. I am much happier than I look. Ditto for Riley.

Chipper goes to the woods

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Having determined how big a branch the new chipper can (and cannot) chew up, we’re ready to roll the chipper down the hill to start chipping. It took about 45 minutes to cut and stack these cedar trees but it would have taken much longer to drag them up or down the hill. This will be the first real-world test for the chipper.

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.