Is there a "special" tool for moving dead brush 100 feet away?

[hrhofmann]

Ignore the negative comments, it's been a hoot reading the thread, and from other posts you have made you're really quite smart and have good ideas!!!

[JoeBro]

Danny D wrote in news:ko2i4a$hmh$ [e-mail]:

Obviously that is your case. However most people can learn to pick up a few sticks and move them at the same time they are just doing it.

Nevertheless, as some point out, your posts are a hoot. Great for a laugh and to make most of us very glad that we aren't you.

Now, try to figure out how to make some trusses for your tool shed.

[Dan Espen]

Isn't it great when you have someone to ridicule? Makes it so easy to forget your own shortcomings.

[Danny D]

It's gonna match the architecture of the house!

[Danny D]

And that's just for the foundation! :)

[Danny D]

I was hoping for a better way.

In fact, I'm praying for a better way, because I still have about a hundred linear feet of slop to clear where the roadway is UPHILL fifty feet ... which has to be done this week.

I'm thinking of just throwing the darn things uphill but then they'll clutter the roadway and be a hazard.

[Danny D]

A man cave?

[krw]

[krw]

Have you studied the history of the tool shed, yet?

[krw]

Well, you wanted a *real* man cave...

[Danny D]

I'm still working on the geology report for the foundation materials. Hornblende, quartz, schist, etc.

[krw]

How about concrete?

[Dan Espen]

Why don't you just put wheels on it?

[krw]

He'd have to study the history of the wheel.

[Danny D]

It would be what material and size to make the wheels, not necessarily the history per se.

Note: It always amazed me that the native Americans never invented the (transportation) wheel; if only they had the USENET, they'd have that, and steel, and gunpowder, and ...

[Danny D]

Thanks for the kind advice. Luckily I have very thick skin. :)

By way of update, I failed miserably yesterday in cleaning the brush where the road was *uphill* on the steep hillside. :(

It's hard to see in a 2D picture, but it's a steep 50' slope where your boots sink a foot deep and often you frustratingly break into a pile of old brush up to your hips in depth:

While great ideas came about from this thread for the downhill cleaning, the steep uphill cleaning defied (my) human hands, wheeled recycling bins, wheelbarrows, tarps, rope, and rakes.

In the end, this measly sickly pile of debris is all I could tease and tug and pull out of the steep slope, where a hundred times that amount remains, awaiting a better idea:

Verdict: Fail.

[Danny D]

LESSONS LEARNED: Given the ideas presented for the *downhill* slope brush cleaning, the most useful suggestion of all was to use the tarp.

The tarp allowed me to drag the piles of brush the 150' or so to the roadway even easier than the rope did. Plus, it was much easier to untangle the tarp than the rope when done.

With the tarp, it wasn't easy, as an average-sized man can move these piles as far as they need to on a flat or downslope (e.g., moving piles 150' took only a few minutes):

Note: The wheelbarrow held pitifully small loads, as did the recycling bin containers (even given their large size). I didn't have any motorized moving equipment handy.

Upslope was a whole different story however, where all the otherwise-great ideas failed miserably (for me, anyway).

[Danny D]

To recap the thread, the suggested tool that worked the best in my downhill situation was the tarp.

The only thing left was to cull out all this frail stuff so as to protect the wood chippers from breathing poison oak:

But, pulling out a few dozen vines out of a brush pile was a trivially easy task, and, was basically the gift wrapping for the wood chippers to make life just a bit safer for them:

They were scheduled for yesterday, but, maybe they'll come today.

[Roy]

Like I told you before Danny...gather these sticks and branches with your hands and take them into your loving arms and transport them to where ever your heart desires. Really, it is not a difficult task as I have done this many, many times under similar conditions and over similar terrain.

[Danny D]

You're a stronger man than I am, because it's fifty feet uphill, and the hill itself is overgrown and tangled, such that you fall with every step, most of the time doing a face plant since you're practically vertical with the slope.

It's hard to see the slope in this picture, but, it's there:

Under those conditions, while you apparently can carry loads of brush with your hands; I tried ... and I can't (effectively).

In fact, I can't even climb the hill empty handed, without grabbing onto tree limbs to keep from falling back down the hill. I tied a rope to hang onto, but then that left me only one free hand to carry all that brush up the hill with.

All I could do was "throw" the brush uphill, half the time it didn't make it all the way, so it tumbled back down upon me.

Since the space is penned in from every side but up, I just couldn't do it. If you can carry armloads of brush in those circumstances, all I can say is you're a (much) stronger man than I am.