Man vs. Mega Stump: Part II (Conclusion)

Man: One; Mega Stump: None

Back in Part I, I discussed our situation with the stump on our property (insurance doesn't cover cost of removal) and why we went with the DIY approach to remove it.  I am soooo happy to report the Mega Stump XL-5000 has been completely removed from our property!  Hooray!  Even better, we have a little DIY Uprooted Stump Removal tutorial to go along with this story! So let's get to it!

 Early Saturday morning, the stage was set for a battle of epic proportions...Alex + Bobcat vs. Mega Stump.  As I said in Part I, Alex had a personal vendetta toward the stump.  Before getting the Bobcat he did spend a few hard fought days trying to tear it apart with a chainsaw, axe, shovel and sawzall- Sadly this only wore down on his ego as the stump laughed in his face with each glancing blow.  Each day since the tornado he would stare out the window at Mega Stump with hate and DIY rage in his eyes.
Enter....the Bobcat S130
 Once he was behind the wheel of the Bobcat he knew he had enough power to take control of this oppressive beast- and boy was he excited.

Once he got the Bobcat in position behind the stump with the bucket aligned under a huge root clump, he put the pedal to the metal...

Bucket down and full speed ahead!!!!  Just over 3 tons of Bobcat metal slowly dug into the beast while the grimmace on Alex's face began to change to a smile.  The stump slowly began to lift, breaking roots and loosening from the ground.  Before long, the Bobcat was up on two wheels as if to celebrate like a triumphant stallion (umm Alex added that part).  I got a little scared that the 6,000lb Bobcat would flip over, I couldn't believe how much power it took to lift up the stump- seriously 6,000lbs against that stump!

Even after all that pushing there were still a few exposed roots that wouldn't let go of the ground.  So Alex hopped out and used the chainsaw to cut them loose.  He was having a really good day!

Once the large roots were free Alex attached a large chain to the back of the Bobcat and around the stump to try and pull it away.

With a full throttle and loads of torque, the Bobcat lurched forward and ripped this beast from the earth.  I was happy to capture his reaction as it came free!  Our friends and neighbors that were watching and helping cheered with excitement as well- it was pretty fun!

Triumphantly, Alex then pulled that baby down the alleyway...

and around the block to bring it in front of our house to sit on the boulevard for the city to take away.

For those that don't know, in a tornado/ strong storm situation city residents are to bring all debris to the boulevard  for the city to come by and collect for removal.  So here is where Alex proudly displayed his trophy!.

Once it was all over I hopped back in the Bobcat for a little celebration spin!!!  I'm totally not lying, those are really fun to drive!

Thankfully the stump is finally out of our yard, but now we are left with this big dirt hole.  On the bright side, we will get a new concrete walkway from our house to the garage (I hope at least, still working those details out), but we do have to replant grass in our yard.  Total bummer considering we spent 2 months last summer doing the same thing :(  and holy moly, I just looked back at that blog post, how sad, you can see the tree that fell (and became Mega Stump) and our neighbor's trees that are all gone now because of the tornado... super sad!  On the plus side though that ugly chain link fence is gone now.  But seriously, will we ever have a year when we don't work on this yard???

To make this tale more complete, we even got a picture of the city picking it up for removal 2 days later! My neighbor was nice enough to take a picture and send it to me on Facebook (Hammers and High Fives for Chris)! I was so excited to see it go!  That little crane has to be pretty heavy duty to be able to just pluck up that stump!

Buh-Bye Mega Stump!

So here ends our Man vs. Mega Stump saga.  I hope you enjoyed the story (along with the literary jazz from Alex) and were as happy to see it go as we were!  Just one thing checked off the tornado repair list for now... praying for some other bits of normalcy to come soon (hear that mister insurance guy?!?!?).  Only kidding, pretty certain they are unaware of our little house blog.

The sewing machine will be out and about tonight!  Getting some things together for that Spare Room that I am really excited about!  Can't wait to share!