Back to my “roots” problem

Location, At Home

Budd and Brenda came down Monday afternoon to spend a few days. They came specifically for my initiation in the local Elks Club on Tuesday evening. Budd is my sponsor. Yes, I now am a full fledged member of the Elks. We plan to do some camping at Elks Clubs this summer.

However, as long as they were here, Budd offered to help remove the large Guava stump. I told him “he had planted it 30 plus years ago, now he could help me get it out”. I had chopped around the stump to get through what roots I could find but Budd suggested that we dig deeper until we were below the lateral roots. Using mattocks to do this we managed to get through the roots but now had a large ball weighing several hundred pounds to deal with.

Neighbor Paul suggested using a jack under one of the lateral roots to see if the whole ball could be moved. Darned if it didn’t move! More dirt was removed from the ball and finally three of us managed to tip the ball and get a board under it so more dirt could be removed. Using that process and a chain saw to cut off roots, the ball eventually became small enough to be lifted by two of us to a dolly. It now resides in the back of my pickup along with all the roots we cut and will be transported into the back country and burned next week as part of our evening fires while I am at Ranchero Visitadores.

Budd helped take apart more fence sections so we could check further for roots and also helped remove the back from my woodshed which now gives me access to the entire fence. All the old lumber was loaded on my truck to be burned.

Here are some photos of the process.


Roots exposed.


Root ball partially tipped to expose dirt.


Empty hole after root ball removed.


All loaded on the truck.


Tomorrow I need to mow the grass (weeds) at the Rancheros Visitadores location that I will be at starting next Tuesday afternoon. I normally start on Wednesday morning but the boss wants us on site by 8 AM Wednesday and I don’t want to get up that early to drag the trailer to the site. Hence, the Tuesday afternoon time works best for me. I will be working until Friday May 8th at noon.