A week after girls camp, while at young womens I got a call from Shane that our tree had snapped in a wind storm.
It wasn't even that big of a microburst. ugh! Sad!
We were pretty lucky in that it only hit the deck and only damaged the railing. But come on!
I called our Elder's Quorum president and he called his neighbor and they had the tree cut up and in the front yard by the time young womens was over.
So long back yard shade!
We weren't quite sure what we were going to do about the stump, but I'm glad they left the trunk tall because it gave us some options. And in all honesty, I wanted that stump gone and I was sure I could get it out. I had a lot of people tell me it was a waste of time and just get a stump grinder. NO! I didn't want it to be there anymore!
Every weekend for about 6 weeks I would spend several hours digging around the stump and cutting out the roots. I went all the way around, and it was as solid as ever, so I went deeper and found another round of roots. I bought a reciprocating saw for $20 and about $30 in saw blades and it was worth every penny.
Finally, one morning before we were to spend the day celebrating the wedding of a nephew, I decided to dig for more roots. I found two 4" roots going straight down. I got them cut and when I gave the stump a kick, it jiggled! It was ready!
Shane drove the Jeep into the yard, we strapped the trunk to the hitch and it was able to snap the last few 1" roots that were still eluding me. YAY!!! I was SO happy!
The Tools that did most of the work. That little weed spade was worn down to a nub!
We were able to roll it out of the crater I had created and into the front yard.
From there it was reconstruction time.
We bought a new tree, dug a new hole, filled in some of the flower bed with grass and adjusted some sprinklers. Now we wait 15 years for that tree to grow. Sigh.
We're still working on the deck. We've got the wood cut and ready, but it keeps raining when we have time. Maybe this week.
