Thursday, October 16, 2008

Stump Cam

Seeing as this is a term familiar to watchers of cricket, I thought it would be appropriate for this blog post title.

Just before I arrived here 2 weeks ago, the tree that stood next to our house had been cut down and removed. Debby blogged about it at the time and I was bummed that I missed it.

We've also decided to have concrete laid on the area next to the house so we can sit outside and enjoy the sunshine without the constant risk of being eaten alive by the fire ants that currently share the land with us. This new driveway will run from the little shed all the way to the roadside and be 8ft 7ins wide.

These 2 photos show a before and after view of the side of the house. You see the tree in front of the golf cart that a bike is resting against ?   Then you don't !




But when they ground the old tree stump down, they didn't remove enough of it as it needed to be at least 4 ins below ground level so that the concrete work could be done. So stump man came this morning to grind it down a bit more and this time I was here to record the deed - hence stump cam.

I'll just split the series into 2 sets and let them tell their own story. First up is a set showing how the guy basically walks the grinder off the trailer and sets it up over the stump.







The next set shows how the guy gets the grinder up to speed and then lowers it and moves it very slowly from side to side and thus grinds down anything in its path. The second last photo shows the lovely colour of the stump as layer after layer gets cut away. There wasn't much left to see really but the photos on Debs blog (see link above) show the colours much better as there was more of the stump at that time.

The final photo shows the stump pretty much gone and the resulting hole was filed in with the bits and pieces that used to BE the stump and so that was a nice recycling touch. It was all over in less than an hour and once he walked his grinder back up onto the trailer, he was gone. It was something I'd never seen before so I was glad to have seen it for myself.






Now we're just waiting for the driveway man to arrive. He rang at 8am and told us he'd be here at 9am. 

It's now 10am.

I guess the time wasn't set in concrete !!      (Ohhhhh sorry about that).

2 comments:

  1. And I SO hope that you said that last line to him when he finally arrived. Without the apology, of course.

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  2. Well no, Daffy, as this is Florida and like with workmen in a lot of warm places, starting dates and times are fluid. He was supposed to come last Monday so when he did arrive about 11am this morning, he was only 4 days late.

    Positively prompt by Florida standards and if this was Key West, he'd have been drummed out of the Union for arriving 'early' !

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