We buy a chipper

We have cut down a fair number of trees over since we started our project and as we go along we are getting more sophisticated in the ways we deal with the resulting wood and brush.  At first we cut all the wood into short lengths for use as future fire wood and just burned the small branches in order to get rid of them.  We decided some months ago that we had already produced enough firewood so we have been saving the large trunks for future processing into lumber as I described in previous entries (Jan 29, Feb 2).  Burning the brush and small branches was effective but we really wanted to find something more useful to do with this material so we bought a chipper to grind it into small pieces which can be used as surface material for pathways and open areas on our land.  We don't want to use it for drivable roads - crushed stone is much better for that purpose- but in areas which receive only foot traffic the wood chips make an attractive and natural material to walk on.  We chose a chipper made by the DR company.  We have bought DR equipment before and have always been happy with the quality, and they still make their stuff here in the USA.  (I own a lot of imported things but I am really starting to feel I have enough stuff labeled "hecho en China".)  DR has three retail outlets, the closest to us being in Delaware.  So Nick and I took a drive out to Delaware to check out one of their chippers that we saw on their web page.  The one we were interested in was a tractor mount unit powered by the tractor's PTO (Power Take Off - basically a rotating shaft coming out of the back of the tractor linked hydraulically to the engine).  We liked the idea of using the tractor to power the chipper for two reasons:  First, we own a tractor and this way we can have a chipper without having to maintain yet another internal combustion engine.  Secondly, the tractor mount unit is substantially cheaper that the self-contained unit because it does not include an engine.  When we looked at the chipper in Delaware we were impressed enough to buy it and take it back with us.  They only had one of these chippers in stock, the floor model, but they were happy to sell it to us.  This was good for us in particular because it was already assembled and ready to use.  Normally these things come in a big box with the proviso that there is "some assembly required".  We drove straight back to West Virginia from Delaware that afternoon and got it unloaded from the truck.  We gave it a short test that evening to make sure it was all right. 

The chipper is heavy so we used the arm of the excavator to lift it out of the truck. 

The chipper mounted to the back of our tractor.

First test with some small branches. 

This is the dramatic warning label on the shaft connecting the chipper to the tractor.

Don't put your hands in it!