I'm a Maroon

[riptides]

Ahhh.....


I use the poor mans grapple. For branches and leaves I use tarps. Really big tarps. I place them near where I am working, put the material on them, fold the tarp edges over the material, tie down the ends, and get the tractor with the FEL to pickup and drop where needed.

On occassion, when I am lazy, I just drag the tarp/pile to where it needs to go.

-Mike Z.

 

[john_bud]

"I'm a Maroon"....

No not at all, in the words of that esteemed scholar and statesman, Bugs Bunny, you're officially an "Ultra Maroon".

But you get a "mulligan" on that one as you obviously married a woman smart enough to more than make up for it.

jb

 

[BillyP]

Turns out my wife is much smarter than I am
I had a laborer (older guy from church, but he works hard) helping me yesterday and we’re cutting out dead trees and branches and dragging them over (thru 2’ high grass, she mows it today) to the chipper (on the tractor) and then chipping them. No big deal right? Except a lot of hard

Well, I get everything cut in like 1.5 hours and my laborer admits he’s pooped out, so I’m helping drag these things over and by the time you get there, I’m just beat, I have to suck wind, etc
I go back to the truck and drink an entire bottle of water in one gulp
Ok, that’s it, I’m wasted
Call the wife
You done with the dentist?
Yeah
Good, come up and help us, we’re beat, we won’t finish til 7pm at this rate.
She shakes her head over the phone and says "ok, I'll be there"
She comes up, looks around and says
Get me the tie downs
The what?
The tie downs, for the ATV
Oh, ok
Go get them for her and look at her strangely and grab another two big branches and go dragging them off a couple hundred feet to the pile.

She takes the tie downs, wraps up a whole bundle and cinches it tight, then she walks over and gets the tractor, drives the tractor back, hooks the other tie down to the tractor and drags the whole bundle over to the pile

DUH
Could have hit me with a hammer
I’m an idiot
Neither one of us thought of that, thank goodness she came.

Uh, that's moron you maroon

It's a good thing you weren't doing this for that "rich" guy from your other thread

 

[BamaRob]

Not to disillusion you, but a chipper doesn't exactly solve the problem.

I have a chipper -- a pretty good sized one, albeit manual feed. If you are chipping long, straight pieces, it all goes lickety split. My PTO chipper will disintergrate a 4 inch straight clean oak branch in just a few seconds, but when was the last time you saw a straight clean oak branch? It turns into a fairly sizeable job just cleaning up the slash enough that it will feed. This even happens (to a much lesser extent) to the big hydro feed machines that I rented before I bought mine.

There is also an issue of just how much mulch you can use. I mulch a lot -- under trees, in flower beds, around the foundation plantings -- and I have a mountain of the stuff all the time.

We had a horrible ice storm in January. It'll take me years to clean up all the broken limbs on my 10 acres (over half wooded).

My current program is this: Everything over 2 inches gets cut for firewood. Cedar slash gets chipped. Honey locst slash goes to the burn pile. Hickory slash over 1 inch gets worked into smoker chunks. Sycamore and oak slash, and hickory slash under an inch, is being used in remote corners of the property to create "rabbitats".

The cedars feed into the chipper easier than anything else, and create a nice, insect resistant mulch that lasts a long, long time. It is amazing after three years of watching this, how much longer the cedar chips last compared to mixed hardwoods.

I was complaining to my conservation agent about how big my burn pile was getting with the storm damage, and he suggested the animal habitat brush piles. Just pick a spot out of normal view and build a medium sized brush pile with bigger deadfall at the bottom and the smaller stuff on top. The birds and small mammals will use it for protection from predators.

Of course, if you don't like rabbits -- this idea blows.

Yeah, I'll never be able to justify the cost of a chipper anyhow (of course, I didn't think the CFO would allow the grapple either. Hmmmm...).

Thanks for the term "rabbitat." I'd already thought of the habitat improvement idea, but hadn't thought of the term "rabbitat." That's cool, and I'll use it from now on to refer to my wildlife habitat improvement brush piles.

I really don't like tending a burning brush pile enough to do it every weekend all summer (assuming we get some rain and I actually could burn). Burning an occasional brush pile is kind of enjoyable, but it's a whole lot of work when you've got lots of burn piles. So, most of the remaining brush will likely go into "rabbitat" piles. The adjoining property owner (my great aunt) is about to have her pines cut, so I'm thinking I'll just combine my brush with her brush to build "rabbitats" marking the property line.

My wife (CFO referred to above) likes the idea as long as I keep it near the property line and keep it where I can mow around it. We really enjoy blackberry jelly and pies. Usually, there's a good growth of blackberry brambles in and around brush piles. If I keep it mowed around it, they should be fairly easy picking, both for us and the wildlife.

I have 4 or 5 piles that I piled a month or so ago. I've already seen lots of song birds and chipmunks making use of the cover.

Later,

BR

 

[jacobweaver32]

I was complaining to my conservation agent about how big my burn pile was getting with the storm damage, and he suggested the animal habitat brush piles. Just pick a spot out of normal view and build a medium sized brush pile with bigger deadfall at the bottom and the smaller stuff on top. The birds and small mammals will use it for protection from predators.

Of course, if you don't like rabbits -- this idea blows.

OMG LMFAO that was good.... I tell ya for a bunch of hillbillies you guys crack me up....

 

[jeffinsgf]

OMG LMFAO that was good.... I tell ya for a bunch of hillbillies you guys crack me up....

Thank you. Glad I got at least one laugh out of that.

 

[RedRocker]

Not to disillusion you, but a chipper doesn't exactly solve the problem.

I have a chipper -- a pretty good sized one, albeit manual feed. If you are chipping long, straight pieces, it all goes lickety split. My PTO chipper will disintegrate a 4 inch straight clean oak branch in just a few seconds, but when was the last time you saw a straight clean oak branch?

Exactly, I remember wanting a chipper and watching the D&R clip where the guy is feeding in a pile of nice clean fence post like wood into the thing.
Then I looked at my brush pile and it didn't look anything like that, a big tangled mess that wouldn't come close to fitting in that little hole.

 

[cjtinkle]

Yeah well you know what they say.... "Behind every great man is a WOMAN"!

Turns out my wife is much smarter than I am
I had a laborer (older guy from church, but he works hard) helping me yesterday and we’re cutting out dead trees and branches and dragging them over (thru 2’ high grass, she mows it today) to the chipper (on the tractor) and then chipping them. No big deal right? Except a lot of hard

Well, I get everything cut in like 1.5 hours and my laborer admits he’s pooped out, so I’m helping drag these things over and by the time you get there, I’m just beat, I have to suck wind, etc
I go back to the truck and drink an entire bottle of water in one gulp
Ok, that’s it, I’m wasted
Call the wife
You done with the dentist?
Yeah
Good, come up and help us, we’re beat, we won’t finish til 7pm at this rate.
She shakes her head over the phone and says "ok, I'll be there"
She comes up, looks around and says
Get me the tie downs
The what?
The tie downs, for the ATV
Oh, ok
Go get them for her and look at her strangely and grab another two big branches and go dragging them off a couple hundred feet to the pile.

She takes the tie downs, wraps up a whole bundle and cinches it tight, then she walks over and gets the tractor, drives the tractor back, hooks the other tie down to the tractor and drags the whole bundle over to the pile

DUH
Could have hit me with a hammer
I’m an idiot
Neither one of us thought of that, thank goodness she came.

 

[LBrown59]

"I'm a Maroon"....


But you get a "mulligan" on that one as you obviously married a woman smart enough to more than make up for it.

jb

How did a moron make such a wise marring decision?
Had to have been pure luck.

 

[pat32rf]

Only when you work for the goverment do you get paid extra to do things the hard way.....