Stump Pulling

   

Pulling stumps is not as much fun as it sounds.  We had some bushes that I think are Mountain Olive.  When we first moved here we were told that they were a nuisance bush.  We didn't see why.  THEN.. Now we do.

We had two big bushes, or maybe areas of bushes.  They were right in the middle of an area that we cut for hay.  I wanted to remove them.  But when we cut them down, there were big knots of stumps where multiple bushes all grew together. 

You can't leave big stumps in the middle of a hay field.  The grass will grow up over the stump so that you can't see it until you drive over it and it wrecks your equipment.  There is a very nice man named Aubrey that cuts hay here.  It would not be nice to ruin his very fine John Deere equipment.

One year we put a large empty stock tank on top of a field that we were going to have cut for hay.  It had been horse pasture for a few years and now it was available for haying again. Nicely fertilized hay, I might add.  Because it had been a few years and the grass covered the stump we wanted to make sure Aubrey knew to avoid that spot.  He told us that once he has cut a field he knew every rock and lump from then on.  I can't imagine knowing that in flowing fields of 3 foot tall grass, but I believed him.

But now we have cut down the Mountain Olive and he might not remember there was a bush where there is no longer a bush, and he might not believe we are the kind of idiots that would leave tractor killers about.  And kill his tractor.  So they have to come out.

If you use a chainsaw and it hits the dirt, then you just have a spinning chain and not a saw.  Instantly dull.  Don't ask me how I know this.  We tried to dig down around the stump, but there were roots as big as my arm in every direction.

   

Time to get out the tractor. 

   

We have some heavy chains we use for this time of work.  At one point the tractor reared up like in one of those tractor pulls.  Not good.  More digging.  More chopping with an ax to get rid of some of the roots.  More pulling.

   

Most of the roots are out.  We can cut the little ones with some hand tools and rake everything smooth.

   

 But not today.  Today I am beat.