Had a small brush pile to get rid of but the pickup was full of mulch. Tossed the brush on the back of the Jeep, put it in 4WD/low range and headed down the hill to a big pile. Doesn’t look like much of a hill in the photo above but it’s steep-ish. The Jeep pulled it with no problem.
Decided to add a bit of flair to the Jeep.
I moved some brush this morning using my neighbor’s UTV (utility task vehicles), also known as a SxS (side-by-side). He has repeatedly offered the use of this thing but I resisted. I don’t much like borrowing tools and I felt like I needed the exercise I get from dragging brush up and down our hill. But was pretty hot this morning and the hill gets steeper every time I climb it so I borrowed his UTV. I didn’t have all that much brush and I wasn’t moving it that far. I can see why people are fond of these things.
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.
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.
In the last few years I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the woods clearing brush and thinning scrub cedar trees. Just playing with the chainsaw as much as anything but the brush piles resulted in some paths so I’ve toyed with the idea of a walking trail.
With no shortage of rocks I decided to line the entrance and that work is just about done. Here’s a “before” look.
When you start clearing brush there are no good (close) places to put it so you just start a pile. Or several piles. As you make progress you quickly see you should have put the piles where they would be less visible but now it’s too late to move them. I got tired of looking at a couple of piles so it was time for the Big Chipper.
Spring will bring more ground cover and everything will look very different. And this isn’t what anyone would call “pretty” woods. Lots of scrub cedar and rocks. And more rocks. But the birds love it, and so do I.
Not really the “last” brush pile, but the last one with which I’ll burden my buddy George for a while. He’s been letting me dump my brush at his place where he burns it for me.
But I’ve worked my way far enough down our hill that it’s getting to be chore to drag the brush up to the road where I can load it into the truck. So it’s time to start making some new piles down the hill and back in the woods. I don’ like doing that but nobody (but me) is ever gonna see these so it’s the best solution.
Why not burn them? I know it can be done safely but not by me. I’d rather have the pile and the critters like them.
I don’t think we can understand zen or explain it but from time to time we can experience zen. Clearing brush can sometimes do it for me.
