My New Toy

Our house shares a double-sized corner lot with fifteen trees.  The trees provide wonderful shade for the yard and house, but they also drop plenty of branches whenever the wind blows.  Here in western Nebraska, that's practically every day.  For seventeen years, I've been tossing the smallest twigs into the flower beds and kids' play spaces in hopes that they will eventually be trampled into mulch.  The biggest branches go into a pile to be cut into firewood or taken to the tree dump, and I usually cram the rest of the branches into the dumpster.  But, no more!

When Bill was in Denver this week, he bought me a new toy--er--I mean, tool.  It's even better than the hose reel he brought home last week.  It's something I've been wanting for years--an electric wood chipper.  Bill bought a new extension cord to go with it, and a black vinyl grill cover to protect it when we're not using it.  He put the chipper together and tried it out briefly, then reminded me to always wear gloves when I use it.  So, as soon as I was up and dressed yesterday morning, I went to the garage to find my green work gloves, walked outside to plug in the chipper, and brought the nearest pile of branches over to try it out.  

It was loud, of course, but no louder than a lawn mower.  And, Mom, you don't have to worry, because this machine has plenty of safety features.  My hands never got close to the spinning blade, since it's fully enclosed.  I used the heavy duty plastic (or maybe, fiberglass?) pusher to help feed the branches into the chipper.  The feed chute only accepts branches up to 1 1/4 inches in diameter, so it's nearly impossible to try to dispose of branches that are too big for it.  When the blade jammed once or twice, I just unplugged the chipper, loosened two large thumb screws, opened up the cover, and removed the piece of wood that was stuck on the blade.  Then I tightened the thumb screws again, and I was back in business.  I was pleased to find that the chipper accepts tiny twigs as well as good sized branches, even with dried leaves attached.  I realize that I'm not exactly known for my mechanical abilities, but this was, as Victoria says, "easy, peasy, lemon squeezy."

I worked for about an hour, and got rid of many of the branches in the yard.  I haven't yet distributed the resulting pile of mulch, which wasn't quite as big as I had anticipated.  I'll have to work one more morning to finish the job.  Then, I'll just have to wait (not very long) for the wind to blow.