Stump 11 for the year

While I'm done with removing tree stumps for the year, I am behind on blogging about my removals.  So here is a post about one of the stumps I removed this year.

This was one of the four tree stumps I had planned on removing this year.  But since I was finding other tree stumps to remove, and time was passing, I had decided to wait till next year to remove this stump.  But then after burning tree stumps 3 and 4 to remove them, I still had some wood left from a wood pile I planned on using up to get rid off.  So I decided to burn the remaining wood on this stump to start its removal.  I didn't have much wood left to use so I thought maybe a small bonfire would burn at least the stump that was above ground.  Then next year I would dig and chop or burn the rest of the stump to remove it.  Besides the day after my bonfire we got all that rain.

To my surprise the rain didn't put the smoldering burn out and the stump continued to smolder and burn for a number of days.  So I got some wood from a different pile of wood and branches and then slowly nursed the fire along a couple of times for a few more days when it stopped raining.

Then it looked like a lot of the stump was gone.  At least the stump was a number of inches below ground level.  I called it good and gone.  When the smoldering eventually quit I decided to fill in the hole. Leveling the dirt around the former stump is when I discovered a part of the stump that still existed.  So I decided to dig a little bit and chop this side root off.  Then call the stump gone.  Then I discovered another side root next to this one.  Then another side root.  What is happening?  I kept going on to the next day.  Finally I removed all of the stump.

So my plan to remove the stump, then not remove it, then remove it, and then finally remove it, then eventually remove it.  Worked.  I got it done.  And spent more time doing all of this, than I planned.

As you can see, not much of a stump above ground.  And decaying.  And part of the stump was now a red and black ant pile, which is also why the stump was getting broken down.  Before starting the bonfire I spread out the ant pile.  I don't know why, but I felt guilty and bad about starting a bonfire on the ant pile part of the stump.  I had hoped the ants would leave if I flattened their ant pile.  I don't think they did.

Because it was predicted to rain the next day, I had added branches from another pile of branches onto the fire to make the ash and ember pile larger in hopes of holding off the rain from the stump.  It worked.

Still smoldering in the rain.

Rain quit for a while, so I added a few small branches to the pile and they caught fire on their own.  So I continued the smolder. The dirt pile in the middle of the photo is for a tree stump (#12) I had just discovered after I had done the initial burn of tree stump 11.  Really?  Another tree stump? When will this end?   That is why there are the two piles of branches on the left side of the photo.  They were for a burn of tree stump 12, not this tree stump.  The dirt pile on the right side is from tree stumps 3 and 4 I had burnt previously.

A couple more days later of the smolder.

Then another day later.

Then a couple more days later.

Then a couple more days later.  Looks like the stump is gone.

Then a couple more days later the smoldering was done.  That is when I found parts of the stump were still there.

Now the stump is gone.

The parts of the stump I had to chop out at the end.  The stump hadn't burnt as much as I had thought it did.

All done.   Finally.