[AT] Not much of a workout, but fun

[Dean Vinson]

This morning my neighbor gave me a photo he'd taken yesterday when I pulled
the dogwood stump out.  Neat how it shows the chain in mid-bounce:

http://www.vinsonfarm.net/photos/dogwood_stump_removal.jpg

Dean


-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of Dean Vinson
Sent: Saturday, June 04, 2011 8:37 PM
To: 'Antique tractor email discussion group'
Subject: [AT] Not much of a workout, but fun

An enjoyable tractor afternoon here in suburbia.  The back 20' or so of my
yard is wooded and backs up against a larger woods, and invasive honeysuckle
is all over the place.  Last fall I'd cut down all the honeysuckle that was
on my side of the property line, ripping the smaller ones up by the roots
but leaving about eight or ten bigger older clusters cut off about two feet
high.  A month or so ago I went back and cut off all the new shoots that had
sprung up from those stumps, and today was the day to get the tractor out
and finish the stumps off once and for all.

(Well, for a while anyway.  That @*&#! honeysuckle spreads and grows like a
weed).

The motivating factor was that an old dogwood tree elsewhere in my yard
apparently died sometime last year without me realizing it, because it never
had so much as a hint of a bloom or a new leaf this year.  Just dry dead
branches.  So after mowing the grass and looking again at those dead
branches, and at the honeysuckle stumps back in the woods, I decided it was
time to get the Super M out.  Cut the dogwood down leaving a four-foot
stump, cut up the branches and the trunk and cleared everything away, then
got the tractor and a chain.  As wide as those big old honeysuckle clumps
can be, their roots are shallow and the tractor never knew it was pulling
anything.  The dogwood stump didn't put up a fight either, although it left
a bigger hole in the ground.

So it was fun to get some practical use out of the old girl, and to hear
that engine smoothly humming along at low idle while I moved the chain to
the next stump, and to entertain the neighbor kids.  Some year I'll have
some more serious work for it to do, but for tonight I figure it's earned
its keep in the garage for a while longer.  :-)

Dean Vinson
Dayton, Ohio
www.vinsonfarm.net