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Uncle Bob's Stump Shop

Into each life a little rain must fall. The rain grows the pine trees and the pine trees in turn rain pine cones.

In my case it was a lot of pine cones. the pine trees had to go, and so they did. Leaving a ring of stumps around my driveway. While stumps aren't exactly the natural enemy of the lawn mower they do make things difficult from a grass cutting perspective.

Note: The actual natural enemy of lawn mowers
are trailer tie down stakes and burning sheds.

The stumps remained, at least until Uncle Bob came to visit. He came up with the idea of putting a half of a 55 gallon drum around a stump, with some charcoal, and letting the stump burn off at ground level.

I didn't have a 55 gallon drum, but I did have a 35 gallon drum. So Bob went to work. A circular saw with a metal cutting blade works good for cutting the drum. At least until the plastic blade guard catches fire from the sparks.

I happened to have a lot of scrap wood, and old firewood laying around, and charcoal costs money, so we went to work with what we had on hand. It worked but the fire had to be tended continuously. By the time Uncle Bob went home I still had quite a few stumps, but now I had a plan.

After several weeks, the stumps were all gone. Being a handyman by trade I found it amazing that anything could work so well without the use of duct tape. I did manage to work in some bailing wire.

I did find that the original plan of using charcoal is far better than using wood, and the fire doesn't need to be tended nearly as much. Two bags of charcoal in with one stump and it will burn right on until it's finished.

Of course you'll still have to watch it for safety purposes. During the same time period in an unrelated fire, I accidentally burned down a shed while burning some limbs in the back yard. Fortunately, my new mower wasn't in the shed where I normally parked it.

And be careful not to sit on the stumps after you light them. (Don't ask).

Good luck and "Happy Stumping"

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