Stump Grinding and Rainbows

This time of year is both sad and exciting.  Sad that my flowers are quickly dying back on one hand but on the other hand I'm excited just thinking about next year's planting choices.

Gear Acres Landscape 2017 was a year of finally checking off several items that have been on my 'to do' list for a long long time.  Sometimes I put a 'to do' chore on my list even if I know that the time isn't right.  An example is.....rent a stump grinder.  We finally cut down the last dead tree in 2016, so this was the year to rent the stump grinder.  

The most economical method is to rent by the day and not rent by the hour. So it only made sense to grind all the stumps on the same day.  OR in our case to rent on Friday evening and have it back by 9am on Monday.  But since we rented on Labor Day weekend we got an extra day and had to have it back by 9am on Tuesday for a one day charge.

The stump grinder has an hour meter on it and if we had exceeded the 24 hours we would need to pay the extra time at the hour rental fee.  But we didn't exceed it and in the end it was just the $400 charge for 1 day but we had 3 days to do it.

Now I know you are thinking 400 bucks is CHEAP?????  In this area the going rate is 75 bucks per average size stump.  We had two stumps that were huge and at least 3 times the average tree stump so let's say those would run $150 each which comes to $300.00.  There were an additional 11 stumps, plus one in my son's yard......12 X $75= $900 + $300 (2 lg stumps) =$1200 - $400 (rental cost) = $800 savings.  FYI We did not exceed 24hrs on the meter.  We were close but did not exceed.

You will end up with a piles of wood chips and dirt after you grind.  We worked on raking the chips out of the dirt and leveling the dirt over the next week.  It went slow because we had an extreme heat wave and the temps were in the high 90's which is very strange for September.

 We finished leveling and raking the loose dirt smooth and then threw down some grass seed.  It has not rained more than a few drops since then so we are spritzing the grass seed several times a day and it has started to grow.

Last Thursday we thought we would get the much needed rain that we have been missing for the last month.  The sky got real dark and it started to sprinkle hard and then the sun came out and we were rewarded with the most glorious double rainbow I have ever seen.

When I first noticed the rainbow, I thought it was just a regular rainbow until I walked behind the barn and saw this..... 

....but it gets better.  It was a double rainbow.  The top rainbow didn't photograph well but it was there.  Two complete full rainbows.

 The color was so intense and very vivid.  Normally you just see the red to orange to yellow to green bands of color but this rainbow also had a bottom band of blue to violet to pink.

 It was spectacular and then it was gone and I went back to watering my grass seed.

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Troy-Bilt...still tilling after all these years

Our Troy-Bilt, rear tine rototiller is old, really old.  We have been married for 30 years and this rototiller was my husband's father's tiller.  He died about 5 years before I met my husband and we lived together for 5 years before we got married.  So it has to be at least 40 years old.

 40 years old and still tilling.

 Over the years this tiller has really gotten the workout.  Gardens tilled are too numerous to count.  Lawns tilled so they could be reseeded......a lot of lawns.....too many lawns.  

And then there was today's job.  We rented a stump grinder over the holiday weekend to grind down all the stumps of the dead trees that we have had to cut down in the last 10 years.  Damn you emerald ash borer and Dutch elm disease.

There was one extremely large ash tree that we cut down that was at least 125 years old.  We counted the rings but without a magnifying glass we could only come close to the actual age of the tree.  Because the tree was so old, the lawn rose up around the tree.  After R ground the stump away there was a hill left behind.

Back and forth and 20 minutes later....fluffy dirt.

We raked all the excess wood chips and removed some dirt in an attempt to flatten out the area but the grassy part was still too high.  So it was time to haul out the old Troy-Bilt one more time.  Would it start?  Well of course it did.  It had a flat tire that needed air but those 40 year old tires are cracked and ready to be replaced.

Over the years, R has been very good about changing the oil and not leaving fuel in the tank over the winter.  We had to replace a starter and the recoil about three years ago but no biggie when you think about how many times it has been started.  The cord probably was a little dry rotted after all these years and was the reason it broke when R tried starting it manually.  We also needed to replace the muffler because it was no longer muffling anything.  Mufflers are cheap and do not last all that long even on new equipment.  The intense heat, steel, and moisture from combustion makes for rust in very short order.

You can see how dusty it is because we haven't had a good rain in awhile.

R probably tilled for about 20 minutes in the area of the ground down stump and about 5 feet around the stump area into the lawn.  We called it quits after he tilled because it gets darker sooner these days and we had some watering to do before we went inside for the night.

Remove some dirt,do a little raking, and throw down some grass seed.

I'm sure we will have to remove some dirt to lower that entire area but it won't be too hard to do.  The rear tine set up breaks up the soil so that it is loose and fluffy.  I have plenty of low spots in the yard so it will just be a matter of dirt musical chairs.  Move dirt from point A to point B and C and D and E......and so on and so on.

Nice fluffy soil.

If you are thinking of buying a rototiller but you can't afford a new rear tine Troy-Bilt......look for a used one.  They are made to last.  Invest in a tune up from a reputable garden shop that specializes in garden tractors and such and you will be ready to till yourself a garden or till up a lawn that has seen better days.

We also have a Troy-Bilt snow blower that we bought used.  We just love the electric start.  I always thought that electric start meant that your snow blower/thrower had a battery.  I don't know about you, but when it is 10 degrees outside, starting anything can be difficult.  Batteries can wear down before you actually get the blower/tractor running but not with this electric start.  This one uses a heavy duty extension cord.  Plug one end of the cord into the wall outlet and the other end into the plug outlet on the blower and turn the key.  Easy peasy.  No batteries to worry about running down. 

We purchased our used blower just before the polar vortex winters.  Those two winters were horrible.  I thought it would never quit snowing.  Thankfully we had the snow blower because we have a loooonnnng driveway.  Which reminds me that I need to talk to R about getting the snow thrower ready for winter because I heard we are suppose to have a bad winter because of La Nina.

It's always something.

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A Little of This and a Little of That

Today was a busy day but not one of huge progress on anything in particular.

Probably the biggest good news is B & G's grass seed is already sprouting! Planted Sunday evening and sprouted by Thursday. Could it be the constant 85% humidity or the rain?

I moved more large rocks and transplanted more miniature hostas. I moved the stepping stone and shoveled more of the little stones that were exposed by last night's rain storm. Nothing monumental but it is much easier to move some rocks every day instead of all the rocks in one or two days.

On a sad note.....Mr. Peacock had been missing for two days which is highly unusual for him. R feared the worst and his fears were confirmed today. R found him dead in the ditch across from our neighbors. Apparently he had been hit by a vehicle while crossing the street to grasshopper hunt in the field. Over the years he has been scolded many times for crossing the street but when the lure of a grasshopper meal calls he becomes single minded in his desire for a grasshopper nosh.

Several years ago, R caught Mr. Peacock on several occasions attempting to cross the road. R would yell at him and shoo him into the back yard. R left in his truck to run errands and upon his return saw Mr. Peacock's head pop up out of the weeds in the field across the street. Seems Mr. Peacock recognized the sound of his truck and knowing that he was not suppose to be in the field, he then made a mad dash across the street, across the yard, and hopped up on the fence and assumed a position that said....."what? I've been here all afternoon." And they say birds are dumb.

RIP

Mr Peacock