The Return of the Stumps - Today, Stumps 0 - Us - 2
My son Billy and I went out today and finished something that has (basically) been in progress for three years now. We started the year I got laid off from my last job to clear the stumps around the edge of our back fence…it filled time while I went in search of the perfect job…
Here’s some photos of previous victories…todays was much more subdued, as battles go…we had exactly two clumps of stumps left to clear…Katie’s Play equipment will soon move into that corner…
Like most jobs we’ve done at this house, I wish we had done more in the way of taking before and after shots. This one to the right was the mother of all the stumps we removed. It took several days to complete it…we dug and trenched out underneath it by hand with a pickaxe, some shovels, an axe, and various boards and pry bars we managed to get our hands on. It was quite the achievement, but even that probably didn’t feel quite as good as this…
This is the small pile of three stumps we removed in the last week and a half or so. Most of the work fell on myself and Billy, but my boys Zach and Zane, who do NOT know their way around an axe, I now know gave us minimal help and lots of moral support last weekend when we removed the first of the three. Each of these is about two feet across. We have this removal process down to a science now, so it wasn’t too bad. Now e just have to rake, smooth, put down that cloth that prevents grass and weeds from growing and top it with some of that lasts forever rubber mulch…then it will be ready to become Katie’s shaded little play corner of the yard. We’ll probably have to add a tent or a small pavilion of some sort…would hate to have ticks fall down from the tree above. Still feels good to accomplish this, finally…just before my second annual evaluation with the company I love so much - where I got the job mid-removal on the first round of stumps.
It’s always good to accomplish things.
DNW
07/20/08, 6:52 PM |
So, Dave. Yanking a little wood, are you?
07/25/08, 6:49 PM |
The stumps look formidable … congratulations. We have some stumps but, as far as I can tell, no stump-removers.
BTW there is a scene in the novel Shane that involves stump removal — have you seen it?
07/25/08, 6:59 PM |
I have not seen the novel Shane…I saw the movie many, many years ago - but I don’t remember the stump removal. It’s not easy work, but it’s the sort that makes you feel you have accomplished something.
David