We Chip and Shred

Phil assembled the chipper. Because nothing is ever easy, he had to drive up to Brown’s convenience store in Esmont to get the specific oil it needed. After about an hour of chipping and shredding, he had to check the tension of the belt, which, incredibly, required almost a complete dismantling of the machine. He must do it after every hour for the first five hours of use, or the warranty is useless. That little adjustment took perhaps an hour itself.

Patience is still not my strong point. I was about jumping out of my skin. No more mechanical time-wasters! Argh! Less maintenance! Argh!

Besides the time issue, I am so not mechanically minded, I think I fear for Phil’s life anytime we’re dealing with such things I don’t really understand. If he were to die, I truly do not know what I would do. I would have to read schematics for myself. And try to loosen bolts. I can’t even open jam jars—how would I survive? Such morbid thoughts compound any mechanical irritation with layers of emotional turmoil.



By comparison, I enjoyed the actual chipping and shredding. Phil fed the machine constantly, while I climbed on our oldest pile of downed saplings, begun in October 2008. I separated out the pines (their chips will serve well for strawberries and compost, but not so well under fruit trees, which prefer deciduous chips); I measured the circumference of larger logs to ensure we didn’t overload the chipper on the machine; I gathered the smallest twigs to go through the shredder.



Phil’s task and mine surprisingly took about equal amounts of time: the 16-month-old brush pile reminds me of pick-up-sticks: the top saplings must go first, in order to free the sticks beneath. Those lower sticks may be covered by leaves, frozen in place by snow and ice, or simply wedged too tightly to move.

After about two hours of actual chipping, we both felt pleased at how the pile shrank. Our landscape will, one day, be slightly again, and I look forward to that day.

Jadon and Abigail both enjoyed snowball production today, until their mittens were wet through. As I pulled branches for Phil, I was the easy target (though neither had terribly good aim, thankfully). Jadon did peg me on the back of the neck, right above my hoodie, and bits of snow and ice trickled down my back for quite some time. Brr! He laughed and laughed, head thrown back in classic Jadon glee.