@Ali–It does need you to talk to it a lot and give it small bites. It jammed on me all the time in the beginning, but we’ve worked out the kinks in our relationship.

@Don–Wow.

@Rowena–local tree companies? like the people that remove them?

@Kimberly–yeah, the goats were asking for it…all that cuteness…it just had to go. And it’s not weird to have compost-envy, it comes with the territory. I don’t even like to think about TL’s compost. It’s to lovely.

@Wanda–I have a goat post in the queue. Long overdue, but it should pop up, maybe, tomorrow? I can’t remember.

@Emily–unless you get a honkin’ one, it won’t easily chip up anything over a inch in diameter, but it’s GLORIOUS. I use it on the bedding and everything. That soil holds water like a sponge. For bigger sticks, I hear busting them open with sledge hammers or something speeds it up.

@Lindsay– I agree about the trimmed trees. Mine look better than ever. I’ll keep hubby in my thoughts as he struggles with the burden of *having* to get another cool machine.

I burn all woody plants and sticks, then I use the ash for the chooks dust baths. Compost is easy to make, but great compost takes careful consideration.

Now wood chips on top of beds is fine, but I would be real careful to avoid putting wood into the soil.

Just my $0.02,
Don

At first, I read it as “Goats IN chippers”. Needless to say, my heart jumped a smidgen! lol

I’m envious of your compost pile. Is that weird?

here’s a tip: i found out our local tree companies will often let you have their whole chipped tree load for free! depending on your locality, they have to pay to dump the chips so it is more economical for them to give them away. we got an entire truck load–a pile about the size of a small car–delivered and dumped for me for NOTHING. woohoo! but i still have sticks to chip because we have a lot of storms and tornados leave a lot of debris.