Getting Fat Lighter Stumps out?

[LD1]

I am mainly just curious to if its a bad idea to try and use a tractor to get these stumps out. I am a brand new first time owner of a tractor. Ive got a Ford 5000 with FEL . If its a bad idea to use the tractor for this then i wont attempt it.

I would say then, no it is NOT a bad Idea.

Tractors with FEL's are made to hadle a vareity of tasks. While it may not be the optimal peice of equipment to get the job done, it will certainly do it with a little paitents. But a tractor is NOT an optimal mowing machine either (ZTR is) but we do it anyway, and a tractor is not an optimal loader either (skid steer is) but we do it anyway, etc.

If you do attempt it, make sure you have suffenciet ballast on the rear. That will make you FEL and digging efforts more productive and safer. And when you think you are ready to chain and pull it out, hook to the drawbar and NOT the 3PH to minimize the chances of a flip over.

Good luck and post some pics of you in action. We all like pics of a tractor hard at work

 

[Redneck in training]

I am mainly just curious to if its a bad idea to try and use a tractor to get these stumps out. I am a brand new first time owner of a tractor. Ive got a Ford 5000 with FEL . If its a bad idea to use the tractor for this then i wont attempt it.

Of course you should attempt it. Tractor is not the most productive tool for such task but it beats pickax and shovel anytime. It wil take some effort but you will figure out how to do it. It will be fun regardless.

 

[gabeancounter]

Have you found a market for the pine cones? I picked up a plenty not too long ago in hopes of selling them to yankee stores like you mentioned :laughing:

Oh man I am laughing so hard! I think some of the yanks have moved south cause they now sell pine cones in the stores down here. I've got 5 acres of timber pines. Gotta get me some of that spray to make them glossy and start a side business.

I have a pine that is around 20" wide at the stump. Thinking I can use the box blade and cutdown about a foot all the way around. Stack the rest of the tree on top of it to create a burn pile/pit. Don't have a fancy FEL or backhoe. Trying to not use the Alabama backhoe.

 

[Farmerford]

It will be a very big job to extract a large lightard stump with a FEL, but not as big as doing it by hand (is that an Alabama backhoe?).

As a youngster on a southwest Georgia farm in the 1950's I had lots of experience with lighter stumps. When my great grandfather started the farm around 1880 it was mostly longleaf pine woods and he had only mules to clear it. He also had a small steam powered sawmill and milled the pine into timber for houses, barns, etc.

They clearly removed some of the stumps, but quite a few were left; perhaps these were the trees that had already died and fell. It was not too hard to plant around the stumps with mules. But when tractors were introduced in the early 1900's the stumps became more of a nuisance. So when the tractor found one while tilling or plowing, it would be marked for removal in the winter. Then during each winter, when there was nothing to do on the row crops, some of the stumps would be removed with dynamite.

As a tyke in the late 1940's Dad let me watch from a safe distance, but by the mid 1950's when I was a "mature" teenager he let me and my younger brother (under my supervision?) blow the stumps ourselves.

We would take a long crowbar (actually a worn out harrow axle sharpened on one end) and poke a hole under the stump, going in at an angle to try to get the bottom of the hole a near the taproot as we could. Then we would put a stick of dynamite in the hole with a long fuse, tamp it, light it, and run. That would usually blow the stump a few feet into the air to one side of the hole.



One afternoon we were feeling brave and since Dad was not around, we decided to put three sticks of dynamite under a stump. We lit the fuse and ran. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dad driving into the field in his fairly new 1956 Ford F100 pickup.

He stopped a safe distance away for a normal blast, but of course this was not normal. The dynamite exploded with a huge roar and split the stump into three pieces that flew high into the air. It seemed like time stood still as we watched one of the three pieces of the stump (fortunately the smaller one) land on the hood of Dad's pickup.

He just sat in the truck and looked at us. It was quite a while before we got the nerve to walk over to his truck. I will leave the rest to your imagination.

 

[gabeancounter]

Great story Farmer. Yes, another term for a shovel.

 

[schoolsout]

P.S.: I assume that one day fat lighter will be a thing of the past. In order to be of good quality it requires that the pine die while still standing so that all the sap runs down into the root. Not very many mature pines die around here while still standing. Most are cut for pulp/timber. A cut pine stump might have some 'fat' qualities, but nothing compared to mature tree that died while standing.

Knots where limbs form into trunk also are good to burn

edit...I read further and see where you mentioned this as well.

 

[Usta]

Even my Silverado had to work to get this one out.
My toy tractor dug all around it but would not move it. After the truck pulled it out, the tractor did push the stump over the bank.

This is a sugar maple tree that was just cut so I could lower the ground there a couple feet.

 

[jenkinsph]

Even my Silverado had to work to get this one out.
My toy tractor dug all around it but would not move it. After the truck pulled it out, the tractor did push the stump over the bank.

This is a sugar maple tree that was just cut so I could lower the ground there a couple feet.

Usta, I would have to laugh if you tried that with a lightered pine stump, whole different ballgame. Good way to tear up a pickup.