One Down; One to Go

So, you may recall that we lost the three red pines near our parking area at the cabin. One snapped off part way up. The remnant was eventually cut down, and so its stump is still firmly embedded in the ground. The other two, however, succumbed to the 80+ mile per hour winds and simply blew over and were uprooted. We are told there had been six inches of rain the morning of the storm and quite a bit of rain in the week or two preceding. Hence, the sandy soil was extra soft.

The first picture below shows the two uprooted stumps. The roots on the near side in this picture were fairly much intact, while the roots on the opposite side were broken and exposed. Of course, when the weight of the trees was cut away, each stump tried to right itself to some extent. The near side roots would have acted a bit like springs to make that happen. Lots of soil still clung to the exposed roots, and with the many rocks in the sandy soil up here, we saw that the root systems engulfed and grew around lots of the rocks.

Nevertheless, I assumed that with some work, we could dig one or both of these stumps out. For me, these kinds of tasks can be very rewarding. I'm sure others just shake their heads that I'd even consider trying. Anyway, we proceeded to dig away the soil, chop away or saw away roots as we cleared the soil from them, and more of the same over and over.

Eventually, I was able to hook my trusty Silverado with its super low four-wheel drive to the stump and work at pulling the stump free. First attempts were premature. More digging and cutting was needed, especially around the roots on the near side. All of this transpired over two or three days. Today, however, we achieved success! When it finally budged loose, the stump rolled right up out of the ground.

Maybe you can see the amount of dirt and embedded rocks that were still tangled in all of the large and small roots below the ground.

Here is the hole left behind. We are now filling this back in and will put the pieces of sod we saved back over the top. I'll probably have to find some additional soil, since there isn't quite enough left over to make up for the space that the stump and its roots occupied. After getting as much of the soil off the stump as possible and reducing the root mass somewhat, we dragged the rest of the stump over to a spot near the woods and pushed it back out of the way as far as we were able. (It is very heavy!)

As my title says, one down, and one to go!