Diggin' a hole -OR- Nature's work is never done.

Sunday was one of those January days when the sun comes out just long enough, the air gets just warm enough, and the wind disrupts the piles of wet, moldering leaves just enough to put the promise of spring in your nose. Though the high wind and fast moving clouds have bought us an afternoon of sun, they are more than likely pushing the eye of the great swirling East Coast winter over our heads.

When the sun warms the side of the house, I can smell the wet earth through the drafty old wood framed-windows, I want to be out working in it more than anything.

I went out today in search of a project. I wanted to get out of the house and stretch myself a little. I needed it badly. I decided to make the most of the weather by digging up the old stump on the west side of the house, which stood the way of my plans to expand my raised box garden. It was a good opportunity, partially because when the ground froze back up, this project would be impossible until spring and partially because it was just the kind of day I needed to physically win. And beating the crap out of something was just the ticket.

I’ve removed stumps before, one in garden on the other side of the house, and plenty of burning, chopping, truck-bumper pulling farm-scape projects when I was a kid. Mostly, it’s a bout as fun as having your teeth pulled out by your middle school gym teacher. Today was a little different though. Today it felt like man versus nature, a battle between my will and countless years of tree roots doing what they do best.

I had the advantage in that this tree had been cut down—I think due to disease—many years before I came to live on the property. I’m not ever certain what type of tree it was. So decades of rot have done much of my grunt work for me, or so I thought.

My shovel and mattock made pretty short work of the soft stuff at the top, which protruded from the turf, about a foot and a half. It fell apart like, well, something soft and crumbly, as I poked and prodded at it. It wasn’t until I got under the topsoil that I realized this was going to be a fight. Finally, I’d get a little challenge to warm up my dormant winter farmer muscles.

Turns out, the trunk that remained sticking out of the ground was a little less than half the breadth of the original tree, the tip of the metaphorical iceberg. The base of the whole stump was probably 10 feet around, about 4 across, in a leaning, oblong shape. But how deep? What had I gotten myself into? The inner trunk was hard and soft at the same time, if that makes any sense. It was completely immovable, but if you hit it the wrong way, the axe blade would either bounce like it struck iron or sink inextricably into the white wood.

I dug all around the base of the stump, removing the softest material, and shearing off lesser roots with a VERY sharp axe. There weren’t many of the small roots left, the last ditch attempts of a dying giant to sustain itself. Mostly what were left were three huge roots, bigger around than my thighs, sticking out in a tripod into the surrounding turf. They too were partially rotted, a few inches on their surfaces of the soft, moldy smelling wood, perforated with fat white grubs, which were awakened just in time to meet—with much dismay, I’m sure—the crowd of excited birds that had begun to assemble on the fence.

With the soft rot removed and the dirt shoveled from the perimeter of the stump, the real work could begin. Axe and mattock fell and fell and fell. The back muscles ached the old ache. A cold wind whipped itself down the back of my overalls, letting me feel just what a sweat I had worked up. It was heaven. I was getting a good manual labor buzz on. The first root was severed, and I brought out the steel pry bar, blade on one end, tamping head on the other, about 4 feet long, and probably 20lbs. My old man would call it a “spud bar,” but I’ve never heard anyone else call it that.

Push and pry and lever and pull, and RIIIIP, with that almost sickening organic tearing sound, the first root pulls free of the clay and broke off of the stump—how utterly satisfying. I chucked the hunk of root into a pile of debris away from the hole. Leaning back on the fence, I realized that there was a pretty noticeable bend in the 1” steel bar. This was a fight after all.

I looked back into the depression the root had made in the ground. In all directions surrounding the thick root, the ground was hard shale stone, as hard as cement. Nearer the root, the shale was broken into tiny flaky gravel. Under the root was thick grey clay, exactly the color of the shale stone.

The same was true around and under the other roots, and the stump itself. This great old tree, which I had never laid eyes on, over the course of who knows how many decades, had sprouted on what amounted to a slab of concrete, flourished, and in so doing sent out an army of unstoppable roots which pulverized the very rock. Ultimately it turned the stone to mush, and with the help of water, our microbial and larval friends, created a layer of pretty decent topsoil.

The remnants of this tree, which I had first viewed as adversarial, were clues, telling of the secret work it had done for me under the grass.

This gave me pause. I imagined the tree in its prime, swaying in the same wind that chilled my sweat. I pictured the roots and their merciless survival grip on the stone below. I stood, humbled by the wonder of nature. This tree carved out a life here, where it had no business doing so. It drilled roots through nearly impenetrable rock. The tree imposed its will upon stone. Despite odds, it grew to mammoth size. Surely this old tree dropped thousands of cones, or seeds, or whatever means by which it reproduced over all this time. Surely the seeds were then cleared away by humans who tidied the lawn and ignored the marvelous determination of life. Here I was, pulling and cutting the roots that had worked so well to serve the propagation of their species, in order to grow the food that would help me do the same for mine. I worked on.

More chopping, more heaving, more iron roots pulled, and there was still a great bulk of stump standing in the middle of my increasingly huge dig site. Blades were dulled, muscles and tendons and bones were strained, steel bars were bent against wood that had been dead for decades. In all, I managed to remove about half of the stump before my workday was through. The rest still stands. It’s a temporary monument to nature. Despite hardship and struggle and the actions of men, who cut the tree down, raked away its progeny, and pulled its roots up long after death, this old tree had managed to contribute meaningfully to the lives of a multitude of other organisms, including me. In an oblique, poetic way, I can see the tree as an ancestor, and more directly, a benefactor.

Tomorrow I will go out and fight the stump again, but today—if it were still a tree—I might hug it.