The only other non-tree thing I did this week is I brought home a bunch of pallets from work. We can get them for free, so I grabbed a handful to put equipment on. I haven't dropped the snowblower off the back of the tractor yet for example, and would prefer someplace off the ground to put it.
Other than that, the storm damage is the big storyline for the past week. Late last week, Barry came up and cut up the trees. The tree that almost hit the outdoor storage is gone
There is still a mess behind the shed, but the tree leaning on the shed is down.
I haven't finished cleaning that up yet.
He got the tree in the front yard cut up pretty quick too. Fortunately, there only appears to be minor crushing of the drain pipe down that was down there. I was intending to put in a french drain down there as well, since that tends to become a swamp when it is wet. I think this pipe is still usable. I even found the end caps for it.
I incorrectly thought it was two trees in my initial assessment. Turns out it was one tree with two trunks. It literally toppled over the whole tree, roots and all. When Barry cut enough weight off it, the tree actually stood back up.
I started chipping on Thursday as we were cutting things up, but I got two branches in and the chipper jammed. Not a great start, but more on the chipper later.
Friday I fixed the chipper. It is actually surprisingly easy to clean out a jam. Got another 5 or 6 branches chipped and it jammed again. Cleaned it out again, and decided I'd had enough.
Saturday I spent most of the day chipping. After one more jam, I concluded that it was the shredder that was continually causing the problems, so I ran everything through the chipper portion. It didn't jam the rest of the day. It was late when I finished, and I was beat.
It made quite a pile.
Sunday I slept in. I did some mowing, which was long overdue. The back yard hadn't been mowed in almost (maybe over at this point) a month. It was shin deep in a lot of areas. Shortly after I finished, I had a visitor. She apparently approved.
I also went and spread out the wood shavings. I intentionally chipped it where I did since that is one of the rougher spots. A little smoothing with a rake and hopefully that area is a bit better. The wood chips and shavings will compact greatly, but that's ok.
I also went and consolidated all the piles of wood. Including the stuff in the ditch and down by the creek. This spot was out of the way for mowing (more or less) and I can also back the truck right up to it. This is the wood that didn't fit in Barry's truck. It is bigger than it looks, it will almost fill my truck.
After that, I also went and mowed the front. This was mostly to chew up the little twigs and tufts of leaves that didn't get chipped. The front yard looks normal again.
After that, I was kind of wiped, still tired from chipping all day on Saturday, but I did get a free TV that I picked up earlier in the week out of my truck and set up. I also verified it worked. Interestingly, all my consoles worked right away with it, so the issues I have been having lately with them not working is my new big TV, not the consoles which is a relief. It is getting hard to find parts for them.
While I was tearing everything apart, I measured how much power I needed. My UPS failed months ago, and every time it isn't bright and sunny my power tends to get unstable, so I ordered a new one. This measurement is lower than I expected actually. This is running my new big TV, my laptop, and my sound system with video playing. The one I got will be oversized for this load, but that isn't a problem.
On the chipper front, I will be writing my full review of it today (my reviews are all stored here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DKy7eu7u7MPrF9hXWjVT1ANctkXLLzsvnxWYXUKmz1w/edit?usp=sharing) but overall I find the chipper disappointing. The shredder is useless, even at the things you are supposed to use it for. You have to push stuff into it, and if anything is larger than a half inch it jams. It is supposedly a 4" chipper, and while I did chip things close to 4" you have to modulate it very carefully. It only feeds if the sticks are almost straight, which isn't realistic, though the opening on mine is 4"x6", and compared to most that are circular at the size it claims it can chip, it is larger. It vibrates really bad, which wears on your hands and tires you out. I was running green maple through it, but it wouldn't continuously chip larger than about 1.5" which was a common complaint and the reason I bought the DR one over the Harbor Freight one. Given the feeding issues though, it isn't as big a problem as you might think. Most branches have smaller branches on them, they aren't a single stick, and those don't tend to feed automatically, they require pushing. I had to keep a pair of brush cutter loppers with me when I was chipping. I only had to pull things out and let it spin back up if it was over 2.5" and had a straight run of more than a few feet, which was pretty rare. Overall I would not buy this chipper again, I would spend the extra money for a PTO attached one for the tractor. They are a lot more expensive, $2200 vs $800, but it is worth it. And if you can't afford one of those or don't have a tractor, wait for a coupon and get a Harbor Freight one. Most of my complaints with this one were present on the Harbor Freight model, but it is at least a lot cheaper.
I don't intend to replace this one, at least not right away, but for now, I think the idea of making my own fill is off the table. The amount of chipping required for that makes my body hurt just thinking about it.
No progress on the check list, but the tree needed to be taken care of. I think it is safe to say at this point, since there is only a month left before I go on vacation, that several of the things on my checklist aren't going to happen. Things in red are likely to be pushed to next year. Orange I might do over the winter, though I had other winter project plans, most notably I recently ordered faucets, and wanted to finish setting up the other two rooms, which will require building some shelving and stuff.
Current to-do:
- Design deck
- Build deck
Build armoire.- Install whole house filter.
- Refurb cap
- Access panel upgrades in master closet
- Back yard drainage.
- Insulate the water lines
- Take scrap metal to Buffum. Clean up trash.
- Close up tiny home. Seal up plumbing.
- Storm doors
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