Old ways

Maybe I'm just cheap. Maybe I'm trying to be practical. Some folks might think I'm trying to be green (why hasn't anyone suggested that the Greenman from the UK be the symbol of the green movement?).

The truth be known I'm just trying to say I did it with the tools at hand.

What the devil are you blabbering about?

I cut down a tree. No big deal. It was near the corner of the lot. It was an oak tree. It wasn't huge. It wasn't small either. I cut it off about three feet above the ground. My intent was to cut off more later. And then I started playing. I started with an iron bar and a post hole digger. I hoped to dig the stump loose. This was (as I suspected) easier considered than done. Now I'm about three feet deep all around the stump. I've cut any lateral roots that I encountered. The tap root is still going down. I took a maul out and gave it a whack. I now have created a challenge.

Some people would just cut it off low and let nature take about twenty years to rot it. That's one solution. I know a bit about cutting off stumps under the ground level. Invariably there is a stone or several stones waiting to dull and destroy any saw blade.

So today I started considering other options. Since the tree trunk is near by I've decided to do what we did in physics class. Fulcrums and levers. First step is to position the trunk. So with heavy wire, my handy dandy steel pole and blocking I start moving the trunk toward the stump. No wonder folks went to bed when the sun disappeared in the old days.