Sunday before spraying some weeds I decided to dig around a tree stump or two to prepare them for burning and bonfires when Tammy comes later this month. To my surprise I easily dug out the first tree stump. Part of the reason was the stump was not that big or deep and the other part was the ground was soft from all our recent rain.
I decided to dig around a stump close to a large pine tree. I was able to easily dig half the stump out. Since this stump was so close to the pine tree any bonfire around the stump would have to be small. I decided to dig the stump out but quit for the evening after digging down four or more feet.
I was able to spray one tank of herbicide before dark, though it was getting fairly dark by the time I finished.
Monday I decided to take an axe and a saw to the stump to completely remove it as the morning dew was still too heavy for spraying herbicide. Unfortunately when reaching for the long saw on the tool shed wall I stepped on the wheel adjuster for my new lawn mower and it snapped off. It broke so easily I thought it was plastic. Nope. Metal. What a minute? Doesn't metal bend?
Great. Just great. Just what I need - another project to do. I decided to use an adjuster from an old lawn mower but after I took it apart I found no two adjusters are alike. Useless for my new mower.
I found some small pieces of metal and decided to fashion a new adjuster combining part of the old adjuster with the new metal. I found the old adjuster metal to be very hard and I broke a drill bit trying to drill through it.
Ok, I'll call Home Depot where I got the mower to see if they have replacement parts. Nope. The person suggested I contact the manufacturer. I checked their web site (mdtproducts.com) and it was confusing and useless. The web site kept trying to send me to third party websites to purchase parts and none of them seemed to have the part I needed. One's site shipping cost was $8.95 so I didn't bother with that site anymore.
I called the lawn mower manufacturer's 1-800 number and the person I spoke with ended up giving me the address of several authorized dealers/repair centers in Kalispell. I'll take it there as soon as I can find my receipt, which I can't find presently. I found out the mower has a 2 year guarantee and I only had it barely over a year.
So I wasted most of my afternoon on the lawn mower, accomplished nothing and ended up in a foul mood.
Off I went to dig out / chop the tree stump. The saw I got when I stepped on the mower was useless on the stump. It figures. With a little more digging I enlarged the hole enough to kind of swing the axe and chopping here and chopping there I was able - with some effort - to get the stump out of the hole.
When filling the dirt back into the hole I ran across some wood in the ground. Another stump? So close to the first? It must be some side branch of the first stump. I dug and found a whole another tree stump. And so close to the one I just dug out and close to the live pine tree.
*sigh*
More digging and chopping and cuss words and a few hours later I eventually got this stump out of the ground.
So. Three stumps. All dug out and nothing for a bonfire later. It wasn't a wasted effort as I got rid of three tree stumps. It is just that I have higher priority things to do right now.
I was able to again spray one tank of herbicide before it got too dark.
Monday morning I noticed someone spot spraying my neighbor's leafy spurge weeds. Good. Sunday I had moved my cattle to my north pasture. Even without my neighbor's spraying it was good to move the cattle to a fresh field with new growth. They seem happy. With the cattle out of the hayfield I put my traps back in and caught five pocket gophers already.
Monday evening one of my neighbors down the road asked if he could bow hunt deer on my property this Fall. Sure. Anything to get rid of more deer. The deer were in my garden the other night and munched on my lettuce and beet leaves among other stuff. They also ate part of my young apple tree. The cattle had broken the fence around that tree this Spring and I hadn't repaired it yet. I should have done so.
Hole from stump number two.
Stump pieces from the first two stumps.
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