The day has finally arrived. You prepare yourself mentally for the challenge that looms before you. You ponder your alternatives, reallizing that it has been 18 months since you donned all of your equipment and actually went to battle with such a worthy opponent as the front yard hedge. You place your your hat squarely on your head, pull the rubber coated gloves on and carefully slide the safety goggles onto their predetermined location. The tree saw and loppers are still within easy reach you think to yourself as you stretch out and over the work bench, grasping the tools firmly in your hands. With a confident stride you guide yourself out to the battlefield of the front yard. The tools are set within easy reach so that you can enlist their assistence if they are called upon.
As you view the potential battle ground before you, it occurs to you that you will be in need of your trusty hedge trimmer, the Black & Decker " Hedge Hog", a powerful 24 inch 3.3 amp cutting machine that can make short work of any branch the fits within its hungry cutting teeth. You return back to your work bench and grab the Hedge Hog along with a good 14 gauge 100 foot power cord. Now you are ready to begin the assault. Cord plugged in, Hedge Hog attached and cord secured. you are ready to begin and to complete the daunting task before you!
Ok, granted, it may not be nearly as bad as you make it, it sure does feel that way when it has been a very long time since you were able to do a good trimming job on your front hedge. This very saga happened to me. It really was 18 months plus since I had trimmed my front hedge. I decided that the hedge had become a big enough nemesis and it was time to “cut” it down to size so cut, saw, and lop I did.
When I was done trimming, all that was left of the hedge were sticks standing straight up about 4 feet from the ground. I did leave a few leaves on the branches but in this cooler weather, the leaves would come back strongly as soon as the weather warmed up. I had trimmed enough branches off the hedge to fill two 4 cubic foot bags full of chipped material, with another 1½ cubic feet raw material remaining. I was chipping and shredding for a solid 3 hours when, mercifully, my chipper/shredder ran out of gas! That was my signal to quit, although the neighbor across the street had already made two visits. It seems my 5 hp chipper/shredder was making too much noise. It was 6 PM on a winter night here on the West Coast. The chipper/shredder ended my cleanup event for me by drinking up all the available gas in the gas tank. It was just as well, I needed to do some maintenance on the fuel line anyway. It had sprung a leak, but I fixed it temporarily with a clamp. Mission accomplished!
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