Tractor Work

Earlier this summer, we fell some trees behind the house that were much too close to where our deck will be. In between working on the roof, we've started digging out the stumps from those trees.

Here is a picture of some of those stumps before we started digging too much.

Frank helped out doing some tractor work while the guys were working on the roof. He must really like running that tractor, because on the day in question I came home from work to find him already digging with that backhoe. Before Dana even made it home from work, Frank already had the tractor stuck in the hole that we'd been digging!
Granted, it was a very deep hole!
Luckily, I have some four-wheeling experience, so we put some logs under the tires and were able to get it un-stuck before Dana even got home. My dad showed up and ran the "Heavy Chevy" to help pull the stump out. Here's my dad and Frank celebrating after getting the stump out of the ground.
One last trouble-some stump to go. Dana kept having to dig the hole deeper and deeper. No Frank's not kneeling in that hole-he's standing!
We finally got the stump loose in the hole, but it was heavier than the tractor, so we had a really hard time getting it out of the ground. Frank and Dana worked on getting all of the dirt possible out of the roots and then Dana took the chain saw to it and cut off as much as he could.
There are no pictures of the stump coming out of the ground, because by that time I was driving the Heavy Chevy with a rope and chain attached to the stump. The ground was pretty slippery since it's been raining, so it was really hard to get traction. After quite a few hard runs with the truck and Dana using the tractor bucket to help lift the stump, we finally got it out of the hole. And now there it sits, right next to the hole it came out of. We did fill in the hole with the now muddy dirt piled up next to it, but funny thing, there's just not quite enough. We've been getting a bit of rain the last few days, so it is getting very muddy.