Strange but true story: Years ago, a female friend of mine had a (British) boyfriend who was a country music songwriter and performer. Against my better judgement, I agreed to go to a night out at their local club. At the end of the night, they rolled out a procession of people, some in wheelchairs, carrying Confederate flags and firing fake rifles at the ceiling in some sort of ceremony that was beyond my comprehension. This was in Wigan. It was one of the more bizarre experiences of my life. Though I have just had a cat repeatedly say hello to me in a neighbour's garden, so maybe it's just me.
Cut down and pulled a tree out of the ground after work today, getting through the roots seems to always be the hardest part, this one was pretty well stuck in but I managed with just the spade. I wondered whilst doing it whether you can get a spade with a sharp bottom edge for those types pf jobs
A few years ago I was in the deep South. I went to an outdoors event in a large national park where there's a cliff face memorial with carvings of Confederate figures. They have it every year (or perhaps not used to have it). Huge crowds gather, quite a lot of people with Confederate flags and stuff. It's a 'sacred site' for the KKK for example, so you can imagine. As it starts to go dark they have a laser and light show and illuminate the carvings, then a big fireworks display. It was already controversial, but I see there's been a little more debate about this in the intervening years A fairly memorable and strange experience anyway.
There’s a tool for that job mate. A long steel pole with a pointed tip, that you wedge under the root ball and literally stand on to leverage the ****er out.
I only know this as donkeys ago I spent an entire day trying to remove this tree and and it’s stump from my garden. About 5 in the evening this old boy from down the way popped round and said ‘I’ve watched you struggling with that stump all afternoon, here have a go with this’ and handed me this 5ft solid steel pole with a spiked end, I didn’t know whether to thank him or impale him on it tbph
They don't make spades really sharp for obvious reasons but there are good strong ones made and alot of ****e on the market. I've done this sort of job many times, sometimes removing quite big ****ers that are dead or dying. One option is to have a stump grinder do the job but they cost money and are messy, leaving thousands of pieces of trunk in your soil. If a disease has killed the tree I don't think grinding is a good idea. What I usually do is dig down a couple of feet to expose the major roots, then get at them with a small axe or a pruning saw. Remove the now free stump and refill hole leaving a nice tidy site for replanting if necessary.