Burning the pile would have required moving the whole stack from one spot to another. Actually, two moves - once to the truck and again to the burn site.
Taking truck loads to the dump would have been inefficient as well, plus, now that the dump has a $10 minimum fee on yard debris, it wouldn't have been cheap.
I finally settled on renting a big dumpster. It's a 30 ton dumpster (24x8x6). It has a door at the back, which made loading much easier. Some of the logs were quite heavy. I'm glad I didn't have to hoist those 6+ feet in the air.
Dad and Trish insisted on helping me and Dad ended up pulling his back. I thought surely after that he would only be back to visit, but he came back the next day and tried to help some more. He wouldn't listen to me. If I'm stubborn, I came by it honestly.
It took three days to whittle the pile down. There was a ton of pine straw to deal with, too. We were thinking some critters would come scampering out at some point, but if they were there, we never saw them.
We loaded as long as we could before closing the dumpster door. Branches were "cleaned" before loading. All the little side branches were pulled off so more branches would fit in the dumpster. It was more work, but we would have needed three dumpsters if we hadn't done that.
The pile ended up filling almost the entire dumpster.
The pile is gone, but there's a bit of tidying up to be done before it can be considered finished. There's a little room left in the dumpster, but there are PLENTY of other branches nearby waiting to be picked up.
In a couple of weeks, I'll probably order another dumpster to start working on the limbs scattered around the lower half of the property. Picking up limbs is a never ending job, but hopefully, I won't ever need to rent dumpsters again after this year.
This is a task I've actually enjoyed, which is really surprising. I have liked the physical labor which makes me wonder, Who am I? I can tell I'm getting into good shape and my stamina has amazed me. This was my Fitbit count the first day the dumpster came -
I loved the feeling of getting something done, as well. Taking care of this much property isn't something I plan to do the rest of my life, but for now, I'm good with it. Very good with it.