The Stump Is GONE

Once spring came around, McKay and I decided that we wanted to start fixing up the yard. We both still have two(ish) more years of school, and we are planning on staying right where were are, so we though we might as well fix it up. After yanking out all the weeds, planting a beautiful garden, and creating a step stone walkway to the mailbox, we started to tackle the big stump right outside the front door. The thing was huge. Seriously, look at it in comparison to our car! It was a bit over 4 1/2 feet wide. We've slowly hacked away at it for the past few months, some days only getting small chips, and other days ripping out huge chunks. Here is the before and after:

BAM. Look at that grass!!

We are so lucky to have some wonderful neighbors! Three walked up without warning, each with an ax, the first day we were out there picking away (and not getting very far). We got half the stump gone that day, and we made some new friends. 

So, Here's the trick:

The stump in our yard was really old and half of it was rotten. Which is why we got half chopped away in one day with axes. The other half wasn't rotten, so it would hardly chip when an ax came swinging down. Weeks after our 1st day of success, McKay woke up early and headed outside. After about an hour and a half of hard work (seriously, he is amazing), and with the help of a car jack, the stump was GONE! Our secret weapon was a CAR JACK. McKay would hack a hole between the thick roots, wedge the car jack in there, and crank up the jack until "Crack!" and the chunk was split into a few pieces. It was that easy! ...If you don't mind all the sweat and aching muscles, that is. Once again, one of our wonderful neighbors walked over and offered to haul some of the wood away on his trailer. Perfect! Once the stump was removed, McKay yanked out a majority of the roots which left us with a clear patch of dirt, which within a couple weeks, was grass!

This is how McKay feels

And this is how I feel

We were/are feeling pretty great. I'm definitely not used to seeing flat ground, because I'll get startled when I walk outside in the morning and there's no stump! We plan on grinding up all that dirt, leveling the ground, and planting some grass! We haven't let our land lady know about the stump yet, but I can't even begin to explain how blessed we are to have such a nice lady to rent from. She has been so good to us. Once we had our garden looking nice, we sent her some before/after pictures. Just last week I received an email from her, she thanked us for all the things we've been doing to the yard, and gave us a free month's rent. Wait, one more time, a free month's rent. I don't know about you, but that is a MAJOR blessing for us. And it's not like we're not having fun as we work outside, because fixing up the place has been extremely rewarding and bonding for us, we love being outside together.  To try and get an idea of how happy we were, refer to the above gif. And also this one:

'cause I'm pretty sure this is what I looked like at work.