Sunday 5 August 2018

The Beast

Welcome to Woodchipper Weekend! Friday afternoon, we picked up the woodchipper we rented from a rental company in a nearby town. We needed to use the vehicle with the tow hitch on it because that's how this thing got home. We put it into position by the enormous brush pile and then it began to rain. A little rain wouldn't have stopped us, but this was big, fat rain. The skies opened, the thunder rumbled and it continued in this way for the rest of the day, it seemed. We did not chip wood on Friday.

Saturday morning began beautifully. The sun was shining, the birds we singing, and we were going to get rid of the enormous brush pile! Happy day!!



There it is. Isn't it a beaut? I know it might be a little difficult to get a perspective on how big that pile is.  


There is a different shot. The pile goes around the corner of the chicken run (you can see fence posts to the right of the pile). What's that yellow thing in the picture? That would be the Beast!


The woodchipper is like a snowblower, but scarier. It is sitting in front of the now almost completely refurbished chicken coop that my wonderful husband has been working on just because I said to him, "I kind of miss having chickens."

Before we get started chipping, I'd like to show you some pictures from the side of the Beast.


Holy crap!! How's that for some images!

In all actuality, there are some great safety features that keep most idiot humans from feeding themselves into the woodchipper. (Anyone seen Fargo?)

Truthfully, it was AWESOME. You stick a huge branch / limb in there, and it just grabs it and chews it up and spits it out. We went through that brush pile in no time! What was left was actually a relatively small pile of chips.

Then we began more cutting and trimming and lopping until we had another pile. Husband did a good job of cutting off dead limbs from our very old apple tree. (This is the apple tree that only seriously produces every other year and we don't use the apples because they are quite soft, not a good flavour and we don't spray for any kind of insects. I just keep raking the apples up and dumping them. ) Now, of course, that it has been pruned, I'm sure it will produce even more useless apples. Husband keeps saying he is going to learn to make cider. But that's another project...


Can you see him? He's on the blue ladder. It's like the children's book, "Each, Peach, Plum, Pear". Oh how I love that book. He's using a Saws-All because we don't have a big chainsaw. We are very adaptable here.


In a little while (in the above 30 degree heat) we had created another big pile. The Beast easily ate that up and spit it out, too.


These are some of the woodchips that ended up in the chicken run - not as much as you would think. Today will be a finish up day with a bit more cutting and a whole lot of raking to clean up the bits of branches that have accumulated all over our immaculate lawn (eye roll).  Because this is a holiday weekend with Monday being a civic holiday, we don't have to return the Beast until Tuesday morning. It is so satisfying to use, I'm a little afraid we might start cutting down trees just to see them being fed through and reduced to tiny bits!

29 comments:

  1. Big job. That is a big wood chipper. Ours isn't that big. At the farm, my husband has ten mountains of piles of trees that he had a backhoe take down, so big that he has to burn them. I love having the woods chips for the gardens and hen house.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am envious that you have your own woodchipper! Even for cutting back shrubs and small branches, it would be great to have on hand.

      Delete
  2. In our new-home enthusiasm twenty years ago we actually bought a wood-chipper. You were wise to have a temporary one - we found that after the first few exciting days we rarely if ever used it. Having an acre of woods where we could just pile limbs instead of the effort of chipping was our undoing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's amazing the size of limb those chippers will accomodate and horrifying to imagee what COULD happen.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Holy BIG wood chipper! No wonder I think our little-by-comparison model takes so darn long to eat all we feed into it. Good thing they had those good safety instructions on the side of your rented unit. Otherwise, you might have crawled into it and gotten hurt. (Eye roll.)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jenn, I am still laughing about the warnings. You said , there are idiots out there. I tell my husband everything has to be in black and white in plain English for people any more. Lack of common sense. I am thinking crawling into a wood chipper is going to hurt or worse. LOL OMG , you are killing me. :):) That pile of chips looks small compared to the pile of limbs, doesn't it? But you are recycling it , thank you. We use a big tarp to rake things upon to drag to another spot. Leaves , limbs, and dirt. Easier than just picking up handfuls. Blessings, xoxo, Susie

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nice toy!

    I have been considering one here. With livestock woodchips are always handy. Using them for anything from deep bedding in a trailer to give the goats a smoother and drier ride to nesting boxes and even mulch.

    But it may be a bit with the solar do over to begin soon. Nothing makes the pocket book slap shut faster with a large project with with multiple 0's and multiple digits in it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Yes I have seen Fargo....several times and I always cover my eyes at the wood chipper bit. I'm not sure I'd like to use one but I'm sure it must be quite satisfying to turn a pile of cuttings into something useful.
    Hugs-x-

    ReplyDelete
  8. I don’t know if those pictures are horrifying or hilarious. They definitely make me cringe. If I had access to that chipper would be cutting down things to throw in the chipper just for fun.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We did actually keep cutting things! Yes, we still have some trees left.

      Delete
  9. A day of work. A job o f work! Kudos to you youngsters.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. After all the cutting and dragging of huge limbs, in the heat, we felt a little older!

      Delete
  10. Quite a beast. Here all the men in the neighbourhood would be round to take a look.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was actually shocked that our neighbour didn't come by!

      Delete
  11. Nice to have this project done. Not sure how expensive it was to rent, but maybe this could be an annual event - I believe a celebration day for the beast is in order, with cake of course!
    ... Mary-Lou =^..^=

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Twas not cheap, almost $300, but we do get it for the whole weekend- not to exceed 8 hours of use.

      Delete
  12. That is one big, beautiful machine! Times like these you appreciate modern technology :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Looks like great fun. Hopefully you had some bushes and trees left by Tuesday morning!

    ReplyDelete
  14. I did think of Fargo when I saw that monster. What a great...gadget...and such a nice way to clean up piles and mulch! So, when are you getting chickens...?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Now that looks like fun. Even I would help out making the chips. Sure is huge. The ones I've seen here are tiny in comparison .
    Wish we had even a small chipper. Would love the chips for the garden

    ReplyDelete
  16. How satisfying to see that pile reduced to chips! That's some machine.

    ReplyDelete
  17. The warnings may give me nightmares!

    From the piles of chips, looks like you could start your own MDF manufacturing company!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Must have been hot work. Did you get today's deluge? That would have cooled things off a bit!

    ReplyDelete
  19. We sed s similar machine when we lived in Virginia and it was rather scary to see the branches go in and then all the chips get spit out the other end. Glad the rain subsided so you could get the project done. The chickens should be happy too!

    ReplyDelete
  20. You made some hard work a funny read for us! Oh my gosh, the images of dangers and imminent death! Makes one think twice about renting a chipper and just making a huge bonfire! So glad everything went well and you can get your chickens. I'm excited to follow this whole process.

    In the city we put all of our trimmings and such along the curb. Branches that fall after storms or wind are picked up by a truck with the good old chipper on it. Sort of fun to watch. We also rake our leavers to the the curb in the fall, and a truck with a huge vacuum hose comes and sucks it all up. Ah, city life! The lake is a whole other story--I'll save that!! :-D

    Jane

    ReplyDelete
  21. We should do that up north with the dead brush. Probably less expensive than finding a way to haul it somewhere and then actually haul it!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Wow, that looks like quite a project you have going on there! We try to burn some of ours as our girls love any excuse to make smores, lol ;-) Enjoy the rest of your week.

    blessings,
    Jill

    ReplyDelete
  23. Wow, what a busy day!! I'm sure you felt a great sense of accomplishment at the end of the day!

    ReplyDelete