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Day 28: Two holes are better than one?
The 28th tree was a Dogwood Pagoda (Cornus alternifolia) at Fort Harrison. The tree is a part of the Fort's attempt of creating a green space. They have planted a lot of trees and designed the landscape with the environment in mind. The tree is located right be a drainage overflow area that was created to manage the excess water from a large rain storm.
Everything started out great. Maureen and I cleared out the hole and we came across a bit of an issue. After getting about 6 inches underground we found the stump of the tree had originally been there. The stump was about 2 feet in diameter. I thought, no big deal, we will just dig around it and pull it out. So we cleared it out and I grabbed my trusty pick-axe. I executed a mighty swing and made direct contact with the stump and the pick-axe bounced right off. I tried a second time with the same result. After around the 5th swing Maureen asked me if I knew what the definition of insanity was.
I got the hint, the hole wasn't happening. I didn't have the heavy duty equipment that would be needed to remove the stump (and I'm sure if I did have the equipment I wouldn't have been qualified to use it). So we moved the hole about 6 feet to the South and tried again. Eureka. I was worried for a minute that I might be stumped and not able to get my 28th tree in the ground (yes that was an awful pun), but we did it and the tree looks great.
