The trailer goes to work...

The trailer goes to work...  I actually used it a bit yesterday, to pick up trash.  But this morning I used the trailer for its intended purpose, for the first time: hauling brush.  Prior to building this, I had two inferior choices.  I could use the small commercial trailer I have for the ATV (holds 1/3 cubic yard, and nothing over 30" long), or I could use the forklift on my tractor (great for big branches, but worthless for the smaller stuff that is the vast majority of the waste I produce when pruning).  Over the past couple of days I pruned three trees and two shrubs, making four good-sized piles of brush scattered around the yard.  With the trailer I was able to compress them all down into a single load, and take them to my brush pile without leaving a trail of trash behind me.

Success!

One of the trees (a red-leafed plum) and the two shrubs (unidentified, but I think they may be Syringa) were originally grafts – one plant was used for the root-stock, and the other for the more decorative above-ground plant.  All three of these have sprouted prodigiously from the root-stock, sending nearly vertical branches heading for the sunlight.  On the plum some of them had reached 8' in length.  On all three plants, when they were in leaf I couldn't see the trunk and didn't realize that I had sprouting root-stock.  Right now, with no snow and the leaves just starting to bud out, I could easily see what was going on.  It took quite a bit of pruning to get them all.  Between the three plants, I'd guess there were close to 100 of these branches, from 1/4" or so to an inch in diameter.  About half of them were too big to cut with the short-handled loppers I have (at right), so I had to saw all of them.  The plants sure look a lot better now!  The plum had been struggling, so I'm hoping that the roots will be devoted to nourishing the desired top-stock now, and it will get healthier...