wrestling the stump

The trees planted along the eastern fence of the neighbor's yard control the afternoon light in our yard. We also have trees planted along our eastern fence. Thus we have trees to the west (their yard) and to the east (in our yard) and one strip of sunlight down the middle during the middle of the day. It's a yard mostly in shade. This makes gardening problematic.

But we seem to like gardening more in theory than in practice, anyway. Frankly, yard work often depresses me. But the last few weekends (except the one we were out of town) I've gone out and cut away at the berry vines (two kinds) and invasive trees (the neighbor's trees aren't content staying on their side of the fence).

There's one particular strip of tree growth that's been working its way east; we've cut it back every year. Today I tackled it with the idea that I was going to root it out. Roots are the story. The trees send these fat roots under the fence and shoots lunge up along their route. There's been a stump six feet or so into the yard that's about the size of two fists. After I cut and yanked up all the smaller shoots I turned to this stump. The wood of this tree (I don't know what kind it is) is brittle. Typically a good pull breaks branch or root. But this stump was taking my weight and not budging. So I got a shovel and dug around it and tried again and nothing. So I kept digging. Where was the parent root? The ground was getting harder. At top the soil is dry and loose but dig down a few inches and you hit hard clay. This probably is a problem for the trees, too. Four or five inches down I found the root; it was about an inch thick (inch & a half?). I managed to wriggle the shovel tip under and pry. Again used my hands to pull at the stump and it wobbled. Again with the shovel and snap. The root broke.

There's still, of course, lots of root underground that can throw up new shoots. But there are no more stumps to stumble over. Yay!