Popping Stumps

In the good old days before the world went mad, I would have brewed up a mess of low grade explosive and popped these dudes the easy way! Now, I'm forced to do it the armstrong method. One of the handiest tools on the Acreage is the good old hickory handled pick axe. Mine is my grandfathers, made by Garant way back about the turn of the century (not this one, the last one). The leverage is tremendous at about 12:1 when you step on the pointed end and reef on the handle. So about 100 pounds force gets you 1200 at the working end.

The pick gets used to pry out rocks, dig trenches, free up ice bound drainage ditches and now again to lever up a heavy block of firewood. Very useful and no moving parts to break down.

Sure, a small cat or a front end loader, or a medium tractor would do a quicker job, but it sure wouldn't be cheaper! Fortunately, I have only 3 acreas full of stumps, so it's do-able. In two hours, I popped out 15 wheelbarrow loads.

Besides, it's good exercise, and cheaper than going to the gym. I have this thing about peddling my butt off to go nowhere. This way, I can look back and say "Wow, I did it"

Unfortunately, we are 6 miles out of town so the Tim Hortons coffee and doughnut , which I craved, was out of reach.

I was looking at the new picks in the store the other day, and I see the hickory handle has been replaced by plastic, and the steel looks kind of fragile. I doubt the new- and- improved one would last as long as mine has. The modern method of getting the stumps out would cost about $1800.00!