Wood chipping begins!
I got my wood-chipper out (woodmaxx WM-8M) and attached it to the tractor and started chipping. I attacked the apple wood log first. I milled the apple log that I got from mom's. I got a few boards out of it, but I had some slabs left over, like always. I decided that I would try chipping the apple-wood slabs and debris left over from the milling. I simply attached a bag to the wood-chipper blower head and started chipping. It worked! However, the wood chips clogged up the blower head which slowed the flywheel enough that a board got jammed in the blades! What a pain in the a$$! I had to take the blade covers off, take the blower-head off, and then manually try to rotate the flywheel with a crow-bar until I worked out the jam and all the debris! While trying to rotate the flywheel with the crowbar, the crowbar slipped and slammed my finger into the blower fixture! OUCH - finger swelled and was ugly. I think it will heal OK now, but I wasn't so sure then!
Moral of the story: NEVER EVER PUT A BAG OVER THE OUTLET OF THE CHIPPER!
After this, I wanted to make some hickory wood chips for my neighbor but this time i was smart and just put a bucket at the outlet of the blower-head. No risk of backing chips up into the head! It worked fine.
The chipper did throw the key out of the feed roller pulley again. I made some shim from an old canning lid and used some loctite to fix it in place, then let it set overnight. I ran it some the next day (when I made the hickory chips) and it held, but I noticed that the feed roller pulley was hot. I noticed the belt was getting shredded too. I thought about it and came to the conclusion that it was better to let the belt slip then over heat the pulley and gear reducer. So I loosened the belt tension and it ran the rest of the weekend without throwing a key! That's saying something too, because i was chipping hickory and that stuff was hard and nasty to work with. Lots of feed roller "jumping" and the wood is hard too; it vibrates the heck out of everything. The belt still shredded though, so I ordered a couple replacements from woodmaxx. I just hope that is the right belt and I hoep it gets here soon enough to take it with me this coming weekend. I am not sure how much longer the old belt will last!
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| Here is what the debris pile looks like now - wouldn't a before picture have been great? LOL |
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| See the wood chip pile on the right - behind the firewood logs? |
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| Its mostly hickory chips now. |
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| Another angle. It never seems as big in the picture as it does in real life! |
Planted my squash!
I wasn't doing too good this weekend; was really tired and wasted a lot of time just napping. I did get out to mow (actually, maybe it was the mowing that did me in?) Anyway, I snuck out in the evening while it was cooler and got the squash planted in the front garden. I brought up the sod staples that I had ordered last week and even used some of the old paper sheeting that I had left over from 2013.
I put in 6 summer squash (it was a "medley" so I am not sure of the exact varieties. I also planted 6 spaghetti squash and then filled the remaining space with buttercup squash.
I also went back to the big patch and put down some black plastic on the unplanted part to keep the weeds under control. I might plant some watermelon or something over there, just to have something growing.
The one variety of kale was up, but the other variety wasn't. According to my planting plan, the Ripbor kale didn't seem to germinate. Seems odd, but I have never grown that variety before. The dinosaur kale is doing OK, but need some attention to weeds! The peas are doing well, but they also need de-weeding!
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| Front is full! |
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| A distant view of the front patch. The summer, spaghetti, and winter squash are all planted and plastic/paper covered! |
Locust tree status
I got some survey markers and placed them next to each of the locust trees that I had planted. Fortunately, the survey markers come in packs of 100 so it matched the trees almost exactly. I did note that about 6 trees didn't make it - dead. I also noticed LOTS of deer tracks in the locust area. Big tracks! Indeed, I noticed some of the locust had been nibbled and at least one was trampled. While mowing around the place I noticed that I have a few volunteer locust trees coming up - I think I will transplant them to replace the missing dead trees.
Deer Damage?
While surveying the trees i noticed that several of the new dwarf cherry trees seem to have less foliage on them then they did last week. I also noticed this phenomena on some of the dwarf apple trees I planted this year. The cherry trees weren't too bad, yet, but the apple trees look a bit rough. Not to mention that the apple trees are behind electric fence! This worries me because if that damage was done after the fence was put up, then either the deer aren't afraid of the fence anymore, or the fence isnt working. I felt a charge on the fence, but I am thinking that if the battery is bad on that unit then the fence will run out of juice by morning - just when the deer like to browse! I will have to get up early one morning and go out to check the charge on the unit.
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