Homemade" Manure Fork" attachment for Bolens also works on Brush Piles!"
She didn't have to ask me twice to move a brush pile from the orchard to the rear corner of the property. In the past I would use my T-16 and my HUGE treble hook to pull the pile out of the corner it was in. Then with brush attachment in place on the front blade I would push to its destination. I create work for my little buddy by piling the trimmings in this corner. It also saves me from dealing with animals and securing them before I can open gates to drive a trailer load to the back corner so I just throw it over the fence. YOU don't want chickens or goats loose in her flower beds- that would be as bad as her finding a wilted flower! I use about 17,000 gallons of water a DAY on 2 acres!! I would have no excuse.
This time I used my new pine needle pile fork attachment (see my "manure fork"thread). In 2 loads I had 95% of it out of there being very gentle. The pile was up against a hog wire fence . When I went to dump it I had to knock it off using a steel rod. The material kind of gets wedged in- nothing serious -but look at the maxed out bucket curl cylinders in photo.
The 2nd pile of trimmings was very different- I have to come up with a "plan of attack" I said to myself as I jumped off my HT20 about 10 feet short of a fair sized tree on the "pretty" side of the property. What am I going to do? There in front of me was a evergreen tree with "cut end up" branches leaning against it. I knew I had to pile these branches up neatly against something to get a maximum load. A smaller tree trunk was needed. There was none nearby-so I had to " create one" in a sense. So I "fired up" my battery operated chain saw and trimmed away on one of the branches to make a pole. I leaned this pole against the evergreen tree and after cutting the longer branches in half I piled all of the branches against the pole I had made.
I very carefully approached the evergreen tree with the bucket just skimming the ground and got a good bite on it and curled and lifted the bucket and backed away and I was SHOCKED! I had it all-except the pole I had leaned against the tree! Well I backed up about 10 feet more and the engine died and I started rolling downhill toward the tree and the POND was at the bottom of the slope. In a heartbeat I had the bucket hard to the ground and in seconds I had a rock in front of the tire. A new fuel filter and some more gas had me back on the road.
I was able to push my somewhat spilled load back down the hill and to the pole and I ended up picking up most of my previous load (see photo with me in it). Dumping this load at it's destination again required a little push from a pitch fork.
Here is a critique of my first experience using a "fork" attachment on the bucket:
This design was made for dense pine needles. The "pitch forks" across the bottom could have been spaced a little further apart due to the "dense" nature of pine needles and I think little would fall out the bottom. In fact I am going to remove the inner pitch forks and see what happens. There would still be a pipe in at the center. All in all I could live with it just the way it is even for brush piles.
The design I would make for JUST tree trimmings and brush would be quite different. I would cut 4 foot wide scaffolding in half so I could have 2 foot long forks sticking out in to which I would insert 1/2 pipe as far as it will go to bring the total length to around 30 inches. Then I would insert 6 inch long 1/2 bolts half way into the pipe- with all being welded. The vertical sections would extend up twice as high as the pine needle ones. There would be a horizontal cross member at just about the top of the bucket a couple more from there to the top. I would use expand metal or something across this as a brush guard above the bucket.Clips (not unlike ball point pen clips for your shirt pocket) are needed to keep the forks that are in the bottom row from breaking off if to much down force was used on the bucket.
She didn't have to ask me twice to move a brush pile from the orchard to the rear corner of the property. In the past I would use my T-16 and my HUGE treble hook to pull the pile out of the corner it was in. Then with brush attachment in place on the front blade I would push to its destination. I create work for my little buddy by piling the trimmings in this corner. It also saves me from dealing with animals and securing them before I can open gates to drive a trailer load to the back corner so I just throw it over the fence. YOU don't want chickens or goats loose in her flower beds- that would be as bad as her finding a wilted flower! I use about 17,000 gallons of water a DAY on 2 acres!! I would have no excuse.
This time I used my new pine needle pile fork attachment (see my "manure fork"thread). In 2 loads I had 95% of it out of there being very gentle. The pile was up against a hog wire fence . When I went to dump it I had to knock it off using a steel rod. The material kind of gets wedged in- nothing serious -but look at the maxed out bucket curl cylinders in photo.
The 2nd pile of trimmings was very different- I have to come up with a "plan of attack" I said to myself as I jumped off my HT20 about 10 feet short of a fair sized tree on the "pretty" side of the property. What am I going to do? There in front of me was a evergreen tree with "cut end up" branches leaning against it. I knew I had to pile these branches up neatly against something to get a maximum load. A smaller tree trunk was needed. There was none nearby-so I had to " create one" in a sense. So I "fired up" my battery operated chain saw and trimmed away on one of the branches to make a pole. I leaned this pole against the evergreen tree and after cutting the longer branches in half I piled all of the branches against the pole I had made.
I very carefully approached the evergreen tree with the bucket just skimming the ground and got a good bite on it and curled and lifted the bucket and backed away and I was SHOCKED! I had it all-except the pole I had leaned against the tree! Well I backed up about 10 feet more and the engine died and I started rolling downhill toward the tree and the POND was at the bottom of the slope. In a heartbeat I had the bucket hard to the ground and in seconds I had a rock in front of the tire. A new fuel filter and some more gas had me back on the road.
I was able to push my somewhat spilled load back down the hill and to the pole and I ended up picking up most of my previous load (see photo with me in it). Dumping this load at it's destination again required a little push from a pitch fork.
Here is a critique of my first experience using a "fork" attachment on the bucket:
This design was made for dense pine needles. The "pitch forks" across the bottom could have been spaced a little further apart due to the "dense" nature of pine needles and I think little would fall out the bottom. In fact I am going to remove the inner pitch forks and see what happens. There would still be a pipe in at the center. All in all I could live with it just the way it is even for brush piles.
The design I would make for JUST tree trimmings and brush would be quite different. I would cut 4 foot wide scaffolding in half so I could have 2 foot long forks sticking out in to which I would insert 1/2 pipe as far as it will go to bring the total length to around 30 inches. Then I would insert 6 inch long 1/2 bolts half way into the pipe- with all being welded. The vertical sections would extend up twice as high as the pine needle ones. There would be a horizontal cross member at just about the top of the bucket a couple more from there to the top. I would use expand metal or something across this as a brush guard above the bucket.Clips (not unlike ball point pen clips for your shirt pocket) are needed to keep the forks that are in the bottom row from breaking off if to much down force was used on the bucket.
