Today’s Delight

Five years ago – or perhaps more – we cut down the remaining half of a giant oak that had been felled by a freak windstorm. Well, the tree service cut it down, and then ground it down to the ground. We didn’t pay to have them haul the chips away, and they didn’t ask, so we were left with a pitcher’s mound of dirt and wood chips.

When I would try to relocate them, Gary would stop me. “What are you doing! You’ll hurt your back! I’ll do that later.”

After a year, he claimed we could never dig the mound up because there were still roots above the soil line in the big mound of dirt and wood chips.

After three years, I tried to dig up some of the dirt, and while I didn’t hit any roots, I did dig up a few blades of grass that were trying to turn the pitcher’s mound into a grassy knoll. I was accused of conspiring to sabotage the lawn. I gave up.

Well, when the pre-tornado winds blew down a pear tree this week, we had the tree service grind that stump down, and take the chips, and then also grind up the (alleged) roots in the back.

This is why I laughed today. I howled when I looked out back and saw our old pitcher’s mound is gone. Our new backyard sport? Dirt bike racing. The mound is twice as high: all the old dirt plus all the new wood chips.

I think our only hope is to keep digging down into the gouges the wood grinder left and break through to the groundhog warren. Then it we could just cause a chain-reaction cave-in. The groundhogs would tunnel through and redistribute the dirt like in the Great Escape. This would all have to happen without Gary’s knowledge, because of course it is his Birthday Month, and he can do no work.