Overview: I've been in Japan for over 12 years. This is my personal blog, covering a mixed bag of topics including Japan, my family, the web, programming, ESL and the occasional rant about politics and the media.If you follow me on Twitter, you’d know I’ve been trying to uproot a tree stump. Here are some pictures to show you what all the fuss was about.
First, an old one from 2008. I don’t have a picture of the tree itself, but I think it was 3 to 4 meters tall. We had a guy from Benry come round and cut it down, leaving just a harmless stump.
Since then, the garden had grown into a mini-jungle, with weeds 2ft high. Something had to be done about it, and with all the caterpillars and spiders in the surrounding hedge, I decided to dig up the whole lot and be done with nature.
Who would have thought such a little tree stump would require so much digging?
Tapping into the extensive experience of the real gardener in the family, I followed my dad’s advice and started cutting inwards rather than digging outwards, and with the help of a crowbar, I was able to pry off much of the rock-hard, clay-like mud that had cemented the stump in place.
A lot of pushing and pulling eventually broke the stump free…
… and left a crater in the garden.
An hour later and the job was done.
The next step will be to saw or hack the tree stump down to a size I can lift into my car to take to the incinerator.
Was it all worth it? I hope so. The goal is to cover everything with tiles or pebbles, and put out a garden table and some chairs so we can sit under a parasol and drink lemonade (or more likely, beer).
