Dug up a partially ground oak stump from some trees I had taken down about 4 years ago. One of the reasons I don’t like grinding stumps is that they will always wind up being sink holes, but the grinding was part of the price for removal. Within a year, a 4 inch tall and very solid chunk of this one was trying to kill my mower. Started digging on it a couple days ago, but got rained out, so finished the job today.
The TEE post in the photo is my homemade stump puller. I used a subsoiler and stump bucket to cut/break most of the roots, and a pickaxe to get a couple I couldn’t get to with the tractor. Wrapped the chain under the root stubble and over the puller, and Bob’s yer uncle. This is actually the second piece I pulled out. I got some out on the first dig that looked like a totally separate older stump, which was also charred. There’s a pretty good sized mound in my front yard that I’m almost positive was an old homestead which was razed when this neighborhood was built, and all the trash and debris was covered by clay from the excavation for the foundation of my house. We pick up at least a pound of broken glass every time it rains. If I can get a good layer of centipede going, that’ll solve the problem with most of the glass. This stump always seemed to be leeching some kind of smelly black ooze that looked like used motor oil, but apparently it was from the older stump under it. The soil has a very smoky smell to it where I dug it up, but I’ve been here 20 years and know for a fact there hasn’t been anything burned out there since I’ve been here.
I also brought a couple bucket loads of compost and soi to fill in the divot from the stumpin’. Gotta get some grass seed and straw to cover it before it rains again.
When I finished with the front yard, I pushed the edges of my giant compost heap up on top of the pile and did a little boxblading to fill in another stump hole from a gigantic sweetgum that got knocked over last winter.
Made a bit of a mess on the tractor tending the compost heap, so hosed it off and knocked most of the mud outta the treads. Came up on the porch with a cold smoked porter homebrew, and wrote this while I was cooling off.