the Walnut Diary

This morning we tipped over a 20″ elm which had died near the shops. The PTO winch on the TAFE did the job and enabled me to place the fallen tree in a rather confined area without damage.

The chain saw was low on power. Eventually I blew out the air cleaner and that improved things, especially the operating revs. Four tanks of gas and the cant hook Bet found in my shop, and the tree was sawn up.

Then came the 3 pt hitch wood chopper. Run by the Kubota, it’s pretty good on dead elm branches up to 2 1/2″ and down to 1/4″. Tiny, stiff and long live twigs clog it up. So I took to hanging onto the tops of the branches I fed in, depositing the little stuff in a pile I’ll throw onto the trailer with the load of chips later. Standards aren’t high on woodland trail improvements, and this really cuts down on sessions with the chopper apart to clear blockages.

Next I’ll load the small wood into the loader bucket and have Bet dump it on the main wood pile. She’s been hanging around all day for the chance, I think.

The blocks will go upright on the little dump trailer with a side folded down (towed by the Bolens). From there I can swing them onto the block splitter (run off the Kubota’s hydraulics) without lifting them a second time. The pile of split wood then gets unceremoniously bucketed onto the main pile, topsoil, grass and all, with the TAFE.

Only trouble with all of this efficiency of effort is that I now burn very little wood…