The Icemageddon clean-up continues to be daunting. Now that I have a refurbished chainsaw, Dave decided I needed help with the heavy lifting so he got me a log hauler for mother's day.
The ground finally hit the balance between rock hard summer clay and sinking, sticky muck. With the ground able to support tractor weight, yesterday was time to remove an old Maple tree stump and plant a young tree in it's place. With all of the trees topped from ice damage, we need more trees to shade the house.
The maple tree stump. (I have other plans for the apple tree stump in the background.)
I carefully dug out the 4 huge roots by hand so as to not disturb the sod and then took my chainsaw to them in hopes all we needed to do was push over the stump. Dave mounted the tractor for the first attempts at dislodging the old monster. This tree came down years ago. Surely after cutting the main roots in half he could easily topple the thing.
Not going to happen. Backhoe time.
One root down and as it turned out, several to go.
Screw the sod. About 1/2 hour of serious digging, the stump was finally toppled.
My turn to try out my new log hauler.
Joy stick mastered and the very heavy stump was in the air...
and off to the wood pile.
The new maple awaits.
The rest of the afternoon was spent filling the hole; tamping down the ground; digging a new hole; planting the tree; adding new soil and replacing spare bits of sod...
with my canine supervisors.
One tree down - three more to go.
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