Getting Started: The Beginning of Oak Glades Farm news

Getting Started: The Beginning of Oak Glades Farm

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When we first got the farm, Hurricane Irma had just gone through and although no major damage was sustained, a lot of old-growth native trees had dozens of old dead branches that were kindly removed by the storm. As one might imagine, gravity did its job and graciously placed all the dead branches on the ground – almost everywhere! We couldn’t even get around on the property! Luckily, only a few of the orchard trees were knocked over and we were able to recover most of them. We did discover, however, that we were going to need some major equipment to handle this onslaught of downed tree branches along with the future trimming and pruning of 4,300 orchard trees.

Our first purchase was the chipper affectionately named “Chip.” I might point out that you’ll notice we name almost every piece of equipment just because it’s easier to refer to it by name than by its description. It’s easier to say “Chip” than “the chipper.” Yeah, a short reduction in this case but when comes to “the trailer with the stronger axles that was originally missing a couple of lug nuts” it’s easier to say “Nuts.” Thus, the naming convention began. We hope you enjoy following the stories of all the named equipment. Anyway, Chip became an extremely valuable tool for drastically reducing the space required for cut or downed limbs! We turned almost 20 piles of branches that were roughly 10’ by 50’ by roughly 8’ tall into a single pile of cuttings roughly 5’ by 20’ by 3’ tall. Plus, we will be using the chippings to make mulch and high-nutrition soil.

As with any used equipment, we had our hands full getting Chip to operate properly. Just starting out, we didn’t want to spend big money on brand-new equipment; a new chipper can be as much as $65,000. So, we bought an old one and started working on it. The chipper had not been run in a long while so the chipper/cutting drum was seized up. The motor ran fine and the activation system worked well enough, but the drum just wouldn’t turn. After a few attempts to clear it manually, we realized we just needed to take it apart and probably replace the bearing. That doesn’t sound like a big deal until you look into it and determine you need really big tools including air-impact drivers and large compressors. Luckily, we have a friend with a shop that has all of that. We took Chip there and after inspecting and greasing the existing bearings, we were able to get the drum to turn! It works great but has some of the adjustment bolts rusted so badly we can’t modify the size of the chipped product. So, Chip will be going to the shop for some serious service someday! Be sure to follow along and we’ll provide pictures as we make progress.


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