Stump 10 for the year

I'm almost done with removing tree stumps for the year.  It is about time.  I only planned on removing three or four stumps this year but I kept finding new old stumps.  Of the four stumps I planned on removing, three were removed.  The fourth will wait till next year as I'm tired of removing stumps this year.

The tenth stump was not in the plan to remove.  But when I was using the tractor to remove stump 7 this year, as I was driving by stump 10, I thought it was weak and decaying and pushed on the stump using the tractor to remove the stump.  I broke the stump off at ground level.  But below ground level the stump was solid.  And this stump had a number of side roots right at ground level, and I couldn't break them and remove them using the tractor.  So once I was done removing stumps 8 and 9 I went to work on stump 10 using a shovel and axe.

First off I spent hours over a number of days removing the side roots at ground level.  This stump was different as it had quite a lot of side roots at ground level, and they were big and very long.  Normally ground level side roots will turn and go down after a few feet.  Not these side roots.  A number of these roots would have a split, or a root, that would go down every so many feet while the side root continued on at ground level.  That made it difficult to try to just dig an end of the side root then pull on it to get the length out of the ground.  I had to find the small splits or roots that went down and chop them off.

The side roots were like a web.  Roots would turn and cross another side root.  Since these side roots were mainly at the same level, one root would turn up to cross the other root, then go back down to the same level.  The root wouldn't go down under the other root, but come up out of the ground - usually - to go over the other root then go back into the ground.  A few times, usually close to the stump and a little deeper in the ground and a little bigger in size, two side roots would grow into one another and join.  Also unusual.

Once the side roots were removed I then worked on removing the stump.  The stump was a good size, but it wasn't as large as some of the recent stumps I dug out.  So I was able to dig it - and chop it - out to remove it.  I had two roots growing down under this stump left last night to remove but I had to put a hay bale out for the cattle to end the evening.  Today I thought about using the tractor to pull the remaining part of the stump out of the ground since there only two roots left on the stump.  But this is me.  If I can do it manually, I will.  So I gave it a go and chopped the last two roots and removed the stump.  To get the stump out of the hole I had to roll it as it was too big and heavy for me to lift.

After I broke off the stump using the tractor.

The broken stump

After I cleaned up the stump after breaking it off.  Looks good.  Not much work left to remove the rest of the stump, right?  Nope.  Wrong.

Side root.

Now I am down to just the stump left.

I chopped the stump in two to make it easier to remove as the stump was only so thick and only had a handful of roots that went down.  No tap root.  In the previous photo, one small root on the left side, and on the right side (in the dirt) there were only five smallish roots going down.

Now I am down to just two roots (on the right side) left to chop to remove the stump.  The left root seen in the photo I had already chopped in two right at the low ground level when I took the photo.

The last of the stump removed from the hole. The five roots are up in the air.

How deep is the hole?  Let me put the shovel in the hole to show you.

Dirt filled back in and now I am done with this stump.