Two's Company, Tree's a Crowd.

 Jaydee got a new hat on Friday.

Jaydee's not much into change so we decided that we'd better do something seriously dirty this weekend to make the new hat look more like a Jaydee hat. We had the perfect project in mind. We'd use this occasion to tackle the monstrous dead-weed-tree-twig-demon in our back yard.

You ever removed a tree? Yeah. Me neither. It's quite a project. First Jaydee tried insults and some moderate badgering.

Twasn't enough. Sooo we broke out the ax and the clippers and the shovel. The dead-weed-tree-twig-demon branches didn't stand a chance. We had that puppy in pieces in about an hour."Ah ha!" we thought, "victory is ours!"

While we basked in our success the dead-weed-tree-twig-demon root gathered it's power and army or earth worms. We didn't know it yet, but the fight was only beginning.

We started to work at removing the stubborn root tangle. This thing was ridiculous. As you can see, there were about 234,132 different limbs growing from the beast, each one with a root that was longer than me (for a reference, I'm 5'7" long, so that really is quite a root).

We hacked. We pulled, shoveled, spaded, hoed. We circled the dead-weed-tree-twig-demon and plotted the best way to remove the root tangle. We decided the best bet was to dig around the monster, and then when we had some room, start digging under the mess. We started digging. About a half our way in, we had our first fatality.

He was a good shovel. Ok, he wasn't a great shovel. He was a $5 shovel that wasn't up for the challenge - we should've known. We piled into the car and headed to Lowes for more shovels, gloves for Dani and tree planting soil.

With new shovels in gloved hands (I wore gloves, tough guy couldn't handle losing his dexterity and grip so he unwisely chose blisters over comfort) we started at again. Digging. More digging. Then more digging. This war was slow going but our spirits remained high.

After about an hour and a half of trench digging we realized it wasn't going to be enough. We started plotting again. I had the idea that we needed something to stick under the dang thing and pry it out but unfortunately we didn't have any 5'+ steel rods laying around. Then Jaydee had an idea. We needed something called a spud bar. So, we piled back in the car and headed back to Lowes.

It turns out a spud bar is a really heavy steel bar with a spade thingamabob at one end and a flat circle at the other. This gadget proved key. It just took jamming it into the ground about 28 times with Jaydee's full body weight behind it, then Jaydee and I both hanging on the end of it and then the beast started to move. Slowly, but surely we jammed, pried, wiggled, kicked, jammed and pried that puppy free. The crunch of the last few roots breaking free was like an ice cream sundae on a hot day...

We thought, "Now it's over. It's really over. We've won." But once again, we underestimated the dead-weed-tree-twig-demon. It still had to be moved from the battle ground to the front yard where it would be taken away with the excavation stuff and it planned to torture us the whole way there...

The heathen weight about 300lbs. Ok, maybe 200lb. Either way, that mother was heavy. We heaved and hoed until finally, we got the beast in the wheel barrow.

Just as we started to let our guard down. SNAP! The dead-weed-tree-twig-demon took it's second victim.

The wheelbarrow. In the excitement and horror we almost failed to notice that another team member had been taken down...

Jaydee's right boot. It was all too much. I didn't know if I could go on.

But then Jaydee brought me a cookie and things got better again. The four of us piled in the car again for our third trip to Lowes. Oy! After the quick errand, we were back in business with a shiny new wheelbarrow.

It took some serious man-handling, but we finally got the dead-weed-tree-twig-demon loaded up and taken out front. Geeeeeeeez llloouuuiiissseee!

The last thing to do was play in the giant hole we dug.

Here's a look at the post-war backyard.

Betcha didn't know there was a shed back there. So long dead-weed-tree-twig-demon!