Lessons I Learned By Cutting A Tree Down

One of the first things Mike planted when he built the house was a peach tree. Over the years, it started to lean and was staked a little too late. In addition to that, it's never really been healthy - sometimes it gets peaches, sometimes it doesn't. We've been talking for the last couple weeks about taking the tree out and planting something in it's place. I'm going to plant a couple peach trees down in the orchard (because of the placement of this one, it also always got attacked by the deer because it was easy for them to eat off of) and hopefully get some productive, healthy trees.

I decided this afternoon to surprise Mike and cut down the peach tree while he was at work. I figured it couldn't be that hard and since most of my gardening ideas have involved heavy lifting, I wanted to do a little bit so that something pretty was planted without Mike having to dig. I learned the following lessons:

Lesson 1: Cutting down a tree is surprisingly easy.

The Chopped Down Peach Tree

Lesson 2: A surprising amount of spiders live in peach trees. Every time you chop, they fall on you. It was my worst nightmare come true.

Lesson 3: Shadow is a really good helper. I hitched the tree to his harness and he helped me pull it up the driveway. Now if only he was strong enough to pull out the stump! I wish I would have gotten a picture, but I was too busy trying to convince him to move!

Lesson 4: Pulling out a stump is surprisingly hard. I dug. I pick axed. I shoveled. I hacked. I finally caved in and called Mike to see if he had any special tips for getting a stump out of the ground. I even walked down to my neighbor's house to see if he would bring his back hoe up (he wasn't home).

The Stump

Lesson 5: Blisters, cuts and sore muscles make laying down on the sofa feel soooo good. There's something to be said for good, hard manual labor!

It looks like I'm going to have to wait until Mike gets home to get the stump out. What am I going to replace this peach tree with? A beautiful baby pink crepe myrtle. I can't wait to have it planted!