Mardi and I pulled the trigger on the Maxwell house early because we thought we would not find as nice a house in 6 months.  The down side was we had to pay rent and utilities on South Port till we found a replacement renter. Well it is April and we still have not found a replacement renter. Last rent payment is May 1st.  at 3300 a month was kind of expensive. But almost over.

So at this point in time, what houses are on the market that we can purchase for the price we paid for Maxwell house. With the fence and extra rent we are close to 950k.  We would have to be closing escrow in May so pretty much in the next few weeks we will see if we made the right decision.

After living here a while, we find having a level lot, without the need for a deck  a big plus.  We find the studio is also a pretty special space.  Most view lots are on a sloping lot with wood decks. Our large lot with its privacy is another plus, not found in most houses.  Our location close to uptown and not to far north on Hwy 16 saves on commute time.  So considering homes north of Olympic is really not an option.  Our house size is just right many are so large not sure what we would do with all that space.

So far we have not found one yet as nice as this one in any our price range. Will try to revisit the selection available in 2 weeks.

Tuesday we had James Moore come and prune our fruit trees. He was very knowledgeable about the garden and a great arborist. He noticed ivy growing on the trees and said if we do not do something about that or else the ivy will kill the trees.

This is an ivy stalk, just under 3 inches.

Little did I know, that the ivy has been growing up the trees for years. I went to go clip the root with a pair of pruning shears. I ended up bending the blade and going back for a pruning saw. One ivy stack was the size of my arm, Ending up being a work out and did about a dozen trees.

Two cuts on the ivy about 50% could be cut with shears the other cuts done with a pruning saw. One high the other low.  Leaving a big gap in showing now ivy stacks on the trunk. Now I guess we will live with dead ivy in the trees for a few years.

1. Single slope shed work area behind studio.

• Link  $2000.
• Pavers for 400 sq ft apps $1400 for sand
• Then Electrician to add light and power.  $2,000

2. Material staging  area by driveway

• Pavers for 600 sq ft apps $1800,
• Support timbers. 6″ x 6″ x 8′  $25.00. 2 x 8 x 10′   $29.00

3. Fire pit.

4. Bridge

5. Gazebo

Ran  about 40 minutes on  the chipper and it started smoking and no longer chipping.

Something got into the material and dulled the blades and I think moved the drum away from the feed edge. where the blade on the drum  chomps down on the material. It seems the material runs under the drum and no longer being touched by the blade.

No more wet leaves into the chippers. I think a rock got into that material and now it it not working. I also noticed that chopped materials was loading up on the feed side.

Need to figure out how to flip the blade, And figure out how to align and measure the blade distance.  I like the machine but only an 1+ hour of run time and a dull blade. Need to figure out  a way to keep it running.

Bought a chain saw, Small Stihl  toro do limb and  down tree clean up. Worked great. Felled my first tree in the yard  about 8″ in diameter.  Some kind of birch? Was falling down at about 45 degrees.  Plus cleaned up a small down tree on the leach field, Move all the debris to the  north pile by the studio.

Will need to get the chipper running we are making more debris thank we  processed today.

Yard waste is a big issue so having a way to remove it outside of burning the pile we purchased a chipper.

Got a   PowerKing 903,  mainly because of the feed rate and industrial weight power. 6 ft per minute compared to 50 ft per minute.

Observations

• Need to keep feed material low do not pack the feed chute. Material rides up over the cutting drum and starts blocking new material
• Gravity is not enough had to push material into the cutting drum with a branch.
• Does not do well with wet leaves or matted material
• the kill bar is annoying only about a 1/4 inch  of movement cuts off the engine.
• pull starting it is awkward and requires a very strong pull.  Electric starter in its future

The output is very fine, which probably means the blade needs to be adjusted to do more material per cut. Will run it a few more days.

I was worried it would be loud and disturb the neighbors, but is a not loud and the cutting sound is not high pitched so we can run this all day long.

We probably have close to  100 square yards of debris to run through so it. If we can do a yard every 15 minutes which reduces it to about a 64 gallon. 0.4 yards.    4 yards  reduced to  .4 yards

Off to do some more chipping.

Sunday January 28th

Chipper.  This is a heavy beast, good thing leverage  was enough to do it by myself. Finished assembly today.   Bought it from Home Depot.  PowerKing 903

• Wiggled it out of the crate and onto a cart Harbor Freight Dolly.
• Titled it back enough to get the rear wheels one.
• Rotated it on the cart so the wheels where on the ground. Then tilted it up added a block to put the front  bracket on.
• The exit chute was aligned with a screw driver
• The feed chute is heavy  needed to tilt it up on some crates to get it aligned
• Filled the motor with oil  Ready to add fuel and start.

Gutters:

• The north east gutter was clogged with pine needles and cause water to accumulate under the patio cover. Removed the top portion and removed the debris.  I added a strainer and replaced the missing screw that allowed the drain portion to pop off.
• Then went to the next drain to the west. It too was clogged, repeated the process.
• Then the next drain to the west. it was not clogged, added strainer.

Notice alot of moss on the roof. Getting stuff to spray on.