i found your stump

yeah, we've almost owned our home for two years now. we moved into our place in august of '08, and we've still got stuff to get done to really make it our own. i find that the list is endless, but fortunately, we own the place so we've got time.

yesterday, i was doing a little yard work. i mowed down the weeds in the front, and kicked up a bunch of dirt. we haven't watered the front lawn, mainly out of laziness, but also out of a plan to do something different with it. we've been thinking about gravel or some sort of ground covering with native grasses and other drought resistant plants interspersed.

no the back lawn, that's entirely laziness that has me not watering. i like the back lawn. it's been the site of many great croquette games, backyard bbqs and more. i didn't have the time or energy to mow the back lawn, but there were some little trees budding in a part of the lawn i thought i'd pull out. i've had to do this a few times before, and usually they come out easily. i began pulling out these volunteers, and got to one that was a little thicker and it didn't want to budge. i got the rest out, and then went to work on this one. as i tugged, i could tell that this one had a little bit of root established so i went and grabbed my shovel, figuring i'd just easily pop it out from below.

nope. turn out there was quite a stump hiding a few inches under the surface. the previous owner cut down a tree, but didn't remove the stump. dammit. so, i ended up spending the next thirty or so minutes digging out this stump. it wasn't huge, but it was more work than i had hoped for. i know i didn't get all the roots, but i'm hoping they won't grow into anything. and, i'm hoping that there aren't any others buried around my yard.

this isn't the first time we've come across this. there was a small, re-occuring hole in our front flowerbed. heather saw this hole a few times, and just sort of filled it in. but it kept coming back. so, we thought maybe it was a small animal. with that in mind, i flooded the hole one day, and just let the hose run for over an hour without the hole flooding. this worried us, and made us think that perhaps we had a sinkhole developing. there had already been an uneven spot near that, so it wouldn't have been completely crazy. one morning i got my trusty shovel out and started digging in the area. and that's when i came across a root. it was probably about 2" in diameter. but, there isn't a tree anywhere around there. so, i'm pretty sure that there was a tree there, that was removed, and they didn't properly fill in the dirt. now, i've got a sinking lawn that's dead.

some day, and maybe soon, i'm going to go rent a tiller and churn up that whole patch of lawn. perhaps that's when i'll put in the native grasses and what not. and maybe another tree.