ejtaylor822
Gold Member
After all the Christmas festivities and traveling settled down, I got some long overdue seat time the past couple of days. This spring will be putting in an outdoor play set for the little girl. Going to put this behind the house, roughly where the current tree line is at. So, the plan is to take down a few trees and do some clearing and leveling out back. My little girl gets her swing, Mommy doesn’t have to trek to the park and Daddy gets seat time – a win for everyone.
Really want to save a few of the trees, especially my Dogwoods but almost everything else can go. So, first thing was to do some clearing and knock the smaller trees out of the way. I would then have some room to lay down the bigger trees and haul them down to the brush pile.
We have had a lot of rain recently and the ground is soft. So yesterday I was able to just knock down the 8” to 10” trees and haul them to the brush pile. Today, however, I was going to have to get off the tractor and do some work
. One of the first trees I need to take out is a pine that is about 18” dia. This tree has been dead about a year so the thought was to saw it down leaving about 4’ of trunk on the stump, make a few digs then yank it out using the length for extra leverage.
The ol’ husqy made short work of taking the tree down. Got the trunk all cleaned up and hauled off. I then took out a few scoops from the back of the stump. Expected the stump/roots to be a little rotted and with a little tugging thought it would just pop right out; especially with the ground so soft. Pulled around to the other side, hooked the chain to the stump, got back on and started moving forward. Well, the chain tightened, the tractor stopped, the wheels spun and that “rotten” stump did not budge – not a bit. Backed up, unhooked the chain and drove around to the other side. Gave the stump a nudge with the FEL and it didn’t move. Knew it was time to start digging…… Oh, how I wish Santa had brought me backhoe…..
The first pic is right before yanked it out. After about 30 minutes of digging in the soft soil I had the stump loosened pretty good. The tap was pretty deep and I had to dig down about 3 feet on three sides. Most of the feeder/runner roots were pretty rotten and dried up. Ran into a couple about 6” to 8” that I was able to just snap off while digging out.
The second attachment is another view of the stump and what was left of the root ball. Was able to dig in really close and the root ball was relatively small.
The third pic shows the result all this effort. Root finally popped out without a single tire spin.
Last pic is another view of the stump showing the hole and how much digging was done. A backhoe sure would be nice. In this instance I am not that concerned about how much I tear up, but, a backhoe would have been much easier to get the root out.
Really want to save a few of the trees, especially my Dogwoods but almost everything else can go. So, first thing was to do some clearing and knock the smaller trees out of the way. I would then have some room to lay down the bigger trees and haul them down to the brush pile.
We have had a lot of rain recently and the ground is soft. So yesterday I was able to just knock down the 8” to 10” trees and haul them to the brush pile. Today, however, I was going to have to get off the tractor and do some work
. One of the first trees I need to take out is a pine that is about 18” dia. This tree has been dead about a year so the thought was to saw it down leaving about 4’ of trunk on the stump, make a few digs then yank it out using the length for extra leverage.The ol’ husqy made short work of taking the tree down. Got the trunk all cleaned up and hauled off. I then took out a few scoops from the back of the stump. Expected the stump/roots to be a little rotted and with a little tugging thought it would just pop right out; especially with the ground so soft. Pulled around to the other side, hooked the chain to the stump, got back on and started moving forward. Well, the chain tightened, the tractor stopped, the wheels spun and that “rotten” stump did not budge – not a bit. Backed up, unhooked the chain and drove around to the other side. Gave the stump a nudge with the FEL and it didn’t move. Knew it was time to start digging…… Oh, how I wish Santa had brought me backhoe…..
The first pic is right before yanked it out. After about 30 minutes of digging in the soft soil I had the stump loosened pretty good. The tap was pretty deep and I had to dig down about 3 feet on three sides. Most of the feeder/runner roots were pretty rotten and dried up. Ran into a couple about 6” to 8” that I was able to just snap off while digging out.
The second attachment is another view of the stump and what was left of the root ball. Was able to dig in really close and the root ball was relatively small.
The third pic shows the result all this effort. Root finally popped out without a single tire spin.
Last pic is another view of the stump showing the hole and how much digging was done. A backhoe sure would be nice. In this instance I am not that concerned about how much I tear up, but, a backhoe would have been much easier to get the root out.
