The land maintenance, non-chainsaw thread

Thanks.

We have a few big mulch piles of pine chips. I've heard that it's bad for garden soil to use pine mulch. Never looked it up myself, though.

Sometime in the next half year, we'll have huge chip pile of Doug fir from my slash collection. Not sure if there are "problems" with using that future mulch. My new leaf piles are each about the size of my dining room, one is 2-3 ft deep. The others are ~1 foot deep. I also now have a new needle pile that's about the size/shape of the minivan. Feels like with leaves and future Doug fir chips, i could get some good compost/mulch.

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Thanks. Looks like my wife and I need to do some planning.

From my leaf blowing, I found a bunch of oak rounds that I had misplaced :)

Would pay the help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=8kqeIFZN0Hw

^^ I'm gonna save you 3:30 of your life here: Nice tits, interesting combination English/East European accent, nothing happens.

all true

Safety hazard! All that protective gear, but yet has an open midriff.

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Originally Posted by bodywhomper

Borrowed friends 430 cfm backpack blower. Now have several HUGE piles of oak and madrone leaves. Low speed was great for leaf removal on newly laid hardscape gravel. That power of blower didn’t really have much effect on our needles. Not sure if owning more powerful blower is gonna be worthy for us. Need to call rental spots about the power of their blowers.

Now to figure out what to do with all them piles....

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I got my dads 730cfm 213 mph blower., Shindaiwa eb854, used it to clear a section of straw and fallen foxtails. It not only blew away matted straw but it ripped out dead vegetation, uprooted 2” rocks and would remove pretty large amounts of soil. I can’t imagine pine needles could stay in place.

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Originally Posted by neufox47

I got my dads 730cfm 213 mph blower., Shindaiwa eb854, used it to clear a section of straw and fallen foxtails. It not only blew away matted straw but it ripped out dead vegetation, uprooted 2” rocks and would remove pretty large amounts of soil. I can’t imagine pine needles could stay in place.

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Yea. I'd bet that a high end commercial blower like that one you mention would do the trick for us! Not sure if i can justify the cost.

The blanket of needles on most of the property is from a few decades of previous owners cumulatively not doing anything and the large pine beetle kill that we had a few years back. It "feels" like a one off thing to reset that the property and get it into more of a mode of maintenance.

Though I can't fathom the size of the needle piles or what to do about them once they are created. It's still a fun problem to have (for me) though the fire hazard is concerning.

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So the volunteer glade crew pitched in for a 43cc u handle echo brush saw and a real nice Husqvarna harness. We have a few sections of old twitch to maintain every year. We also are looking to put the glades on rotation for cutting down the brush. Work on the twitch is mostly weeds, and berry canes. Have used a metal triblade on that before with a big Husky brush saw and will be using the triblade on the new brush saw.

Question is about using a blade to clear moosewood, beech suckers, brush on a rotating basis in the glades up to say 2 inches in size or so. Plan to have a few extra blades on hand so if ding it up in the rock can switch out if needed. Will also have files. Stihl, Husky, Echo don't sell the blades with the chainsaw teeth riveted on. Got one, but it says max rpm is 10,000 even though Echo and Stihl (didn't check Husky) are 11K+. Some people like this style blade. It is easily sharpened and cheap. Also have an echo 22 tooth blade for the machine, all 3 sell this type of blade. Looks a lot more like what I want spinning at 11k+ near the ground, but more difficult to sharpen?

Questions: Any experience with chain saw toothed brush saw blade? Advice on sharpening skill saw style blade? Advice on swing speed/momentum for cutting 1-2" hardwood with either blade?

I have no answers to the above, but am curious about brush saws.

I’m starting to hunt more diligently for a strong blower. I’m thinking that a blower similar in cfm to the stihl br600 is what’s needed for the mass of needles and leaves we deal with. I borrowed a bt150 husky from my neighbor and it worked well for dry leaves but barely had any affect to the needles or damp leaves. It’s deep on some of our little plot. Looking at used listings. Are there any specific issues amongst the brands? I’m currently considering all the higher end brands (echo, husky, and stihl) about equal, unless I’m missing something.

The use of sharp things got my 13 year old interested in blackberry removal. A win on multiple fronts!
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Originally Posted by cat in january

Questions: Any experience with chain saw toothed brush saw blade? Advice on sharpening skill saw style blade? Advice on swing speed/momentum for cutting 1-2" hardwood with either blade?

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Haven't tried a chainsaw toothed blade yet, but it seems like they would want slow, consistent pressure against the wood, which I've found doesn't work real well. The length of the brush cutter makes the blade inclined to skip off the wood. Although this is using a normal 22 tooth blade.

But with the 22 tooth, I can go through ~3" softwood no problem. It mostly comes down to technique - smaller diameter works better sweeping from the left (against the blade's rotation). Bigger stuff work better sweeping from the right, so the rotation pulls the blade through the tree.

Cat- just use the blade you already have and go easy on the throttle so you don’t hit max RPM.

Best thing I have found for brush is a 20v Black and Decker Alligator. Takes care of cuts with a max of 6”.

So easy compared to a chainsaw and not nearly as tiresome due to the much lighter weight. Also no stank, hassle or noise from a loud 2-stroke engine. Another major advantage is that the blade does not bounce off unsupported brush/limbs like a chainsaw because it pinches it.

Just got it a few months ago and I wish I would have tried one years sooner. So much easier. It kills it.

https://www.amazon.com/BLACK-DECKER-LLP120B-Lithium-Alligator/dp/B00AZW9ZL8/ref=mp_s_a_1_23_sspa?keywords=black+and+decker&qid =1555786728&s=gateway&sr=8-23-spons&psc=1

Bodywhomper - I’ve found that a hedge trimmer works very well on blackberries.

Thanks! Our berry patches are not too bad yet, but it sure is a persistent plant!

Bigger goals are to help with our elderly neighbors. Lots of biomass needs to be reduced in my hood.

New (for me) toy. Bonus is that the 13 year old enjoys using it. Not sure what I’m gonna do with all the needles and leaves we will collect. I believe one of our farms will take some for bedding for their goats. With all the pine beetle die offs and a couple decades of deferred maintenance, we have a thick layer of needles and leaves. The idea is to have a restart of the forest floor of our little property.
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Dood get some animals like chickens or a couple pigs and mix it with the poop for glorious compost.

The County has free green waste disposal on weekends throughout the month. The first of many loads
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Helper
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The second one is like something out of a Saw type movie, like WTF was the guy thinking?

^That was insane. I can’t believe there weren’t at least a few fingers flying off during that.

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Originally Posted by BmillsSkier

zombie apocalypse

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Well here we are.

The first one made sense. Slow and steady.
The rest of those are death traps and rampant OSHA violations.

$$ shot
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Our land maintenance is piling rocks where the waves beat on the very steep dirt banks that are receding ever closer to the road. Unfortunately, every year the waves get bigger as ski boats become wake board boats and wake boarders become wake surfers, while the rocks I can lift get smaller and smaller. In a few weeks they'll let the water out of the lake, the beach will return, and the waves that come with the winter storms won't reach the banks. But every year we lose a big pine tree at the water's edge that holds the land together. Pretty soon they're going to have to rip rap the shoreline, which will be a shame.

I could use one of those little folder pruner saws for low to the ground cuts with more accuracy and cleaner cut than the lopper. Not that it’s that much money to risk but man do the fiskars get horrible reviews. Thinking of trying the random Conrona brand (bet they’re happy with their name) that gets way better reviews. Not really wanting to drop triple for the silky but I guess I could.

Edit, I see there’s about 5 versions of the same saw now.
Man I hate shopping.

This weekend has a local free green waste drop off. I spent some time improving my neighbor’s property next to my road that accesses my driveway. I have lots more slash and narrow logs to load. More than I’ll have time to deal with this weekend. A friend loaned me their trailer, which is almost twice the size of mine.
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I’ve been using these loaner plant pullers/“weed jacks” to yank the Scotch broom, an aggressive invasive in my area, and small incense cedar sprouts (a native that behaves like a weed)
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I participated in my first rx burn at the beginning of the month. It was partially a training exercise for people like me. The burn objective was to improved wildfire safety for some structures at a university forest research facility. At the facility, they burn right up to the structures regularly to control surface fuels. It was interesting to see. This particular burn was across a parking lot from the HQ office. I’d like to put fire (broadcast burning) on my little property to control surface fuels, but I want a little more experience first. I’m volunteering in the recently formed local prescribed burn association and hope to participate in several burns in the fall (the seasonal burn ban is now I effect in my area). Here’s a photo of the burn boss lighting it up. We scraped the control line shown in the edge of photo.
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