It's been another week of laying around for me, waiting for bones to knit. But while I've been working on the basics, like learning to cook from a rolling stool, Luke has been making progress on the garage and our stump problem.
You might need a little backstory for this to all make sense. When we bought the house we had this ugly clump of trees growing in front of the house (far right)
When we were ready to start work on the garage we cut them down, leaving the stump where the driveway needed to be.
This was once a massive system of cottonwood trees, with a stump four feet in diameter. Our concrete contractor tried to remove it with a mini-excavator and a bobcat with no luck. Our driveway cannot be poured because the stump is in the way.
So three and a half weeks ago I hired a tree service to remove it. Apparently the tree guy was not motivated by his $500 bid, because we've had nothing but ignored calls and excuses ever since then. Two weeks after the concrete guy poured the garage slab Luke got fed up and rented a mini-excavator.
He dug a deep trench all the way around the stump until he could finally rock it loose like a baby tooth.
Getting it out of the hole was no easy matter. The stump was too heavy and bulky for the mini-excavator to pull out of the hole so he had to clean the loose dirt away with the pressure washer and cut off chunks with his chainsaw.
Eventually he was able to haul the monstrous stump out of the hole and load it onto the tilt bed trailer for the excavator.
So instead of paying the tree company $500 we spent $140 on the mini-excavator. Now we just have to get the concrete guy out here to pour the driveway and we will be done with contractors.
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