The Big, Old Tree Stump In The Road

March 3. 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

I do a lot of backhoe work as well as mowing fields with my tractor. Today, I had to remove a big, old stump in the road. Thinking about things while digging deep holes is easy. As we all struggle to understand reality, it pays to do something real. This is why I suggest all our top leaders and bankers all be put to work cleaning out ox stalls, ploughing fields with an ox team, digging holes or haying fields. This sharpens the mind wonderfully. This is why some of the greatest minds on earth didn't come from some office in an ivory tower but rather, were honed on the roads and fields of the Real World.

The big, old stump in the road bothered us for years. Once upon a time, it was part of this huge tree that reached all the way to the heavens. It's branches had many leaves which would catch the wind, rain and sunshine. The tree grew for hundreds of years. Then, over time, it dropped its branches and had fewer and fewer leaves. Slowly, it died. Each storm tore off more sections of this great tree. Eventually, it was cut down and became parts of a house built up on the mountain. The oxen were hitched to sections of the great tree and they slowly and ponderously hauled each section up the mountain. These parts were put into a wood mill and cut into planks.

I planed down these planks and they are now part of my kitchen, sun room flooring and shelving. The parts not used for this were turned into firewood and it kept us all warm during the cold northern winters. The tree was over 4' in diameter. We cut the stump to be level with the road. There it sat for many years, covered with dirt.

But the old tree stump didn't vanish. It was always there. In summer, it was barely noticed. But in winter, it would begin to cause problems. When plowing snow, it was a hard bulge in the road. When the ice melted in spring, it became a huge hazard. If one drove over it instead of around it, the big, old stump would be like a boulder. A loud bang and jolt if one hit it. So I decided, when the snow melted this year, I would dig it up.

Being a big, old stump, this was no small chore. I have experience with removing old stumps so I wasn't stumped as to how to go about doing this. I had to take the backhoe and position it properly to begin digging. This takes some planning and care. The tree stump isn't just a piece of wood. It is intimately bonded to the surrounding rocks and earth. There are many small roots that are densely intertwined with the surrounding soil but aside from them are at least 5 great roots that are thicker than a leg or arm. These splay outwards near the surface. But some are deep. And the digger can't cut into the ground around the stump itself. One has to start outwards by at least 6 feet in order to dig up these thicker roots.

Patiently and slowly, over the course of the day, I dug. This is hard on the shoulders for unlike digging in non-root infested ground, there are constant jerks and jolts as the bucket slams against the roots and other items that trees collect at their bases. Slow and tediously I dug over the hours. The sun went from high in the sky to lower and lower in the West.

Storm clounds began to move in. I had to finish this job and fill the big hole before the snow flies this night! I stop and look at the big, old stump in the road. It is bigger than me. 'Maybe I will have to refill this hole and do it later,' I thought. But that would be admitting defeat. The size of the stump scared me now that the sun was Westering. 'Maybe I can't drag it out of this hole!' I thought, fearfully.

As I dug and dug, the tractor roaring, the arm of the backhoe rising and falling, dragging out more and more stones, roots and dirt, I thought, 'Maybe I should stop and go up the road to Jimmy's farm. He has a bigger backhoe. Maybe he can rip this thing out for me.' But then, I thought, he is awfully busy with his cows and it is getting towards milking time. Then I thought, 'Maybe I should get some dynamite and blow up this big, old tree stump.'

But the local farm store that sold these sorts of things has closed thanks to free trade wrecking our town's commerce to the point, there are virtually no stores left. So I kept on digging. The entire tree stump was exposed now. I thought, 'It is a good thing I won't use dynamite. Greenhollow Road runs below me here and if I were to blow this up, it would fly through the air and go tumbling down onto the road and cause a lot of damage.' So I repositioned the tractor and kept on digging. The wind began to blow.

Then I thought, 'I wish my oxen were still around. They could pull this big, old tree stump out of the road for me if I wrap the logging chain around it.' But my poor boys have long ago died of old age. So I had to keep on digging.

Then the stump moved! I pried at it with the teeth of the bucket and it jiggled. So for an hour, I jiggled it around. It was immensely heavy but after jerking it around and digging into it, I managed to flip it over in the deep hole. And then using the teeth of the bucket, I began to bang at the base of the tree which was now exposed to the heavens. I tore at it and ripped off all the smaller roots and loosened the dead tree's grip on rocks and broken slate. As the sun was setting, I was finally able to slowly roll the tree stump out of the deep hole and shove it sideways, off the road, being careful to lodge it between two trees so it wouldn't hurtle down onto Greenhollow Road.

I then filled in the hole. At one point, I got stuck. The tractor sank into the mud and couldn't move. I thought, 'Maybe I should get someone to help tow me out.' But time was wasting so I used the backhoe and shoved the bucket into the muddy hole and then rolled the bucket so the tractor jumped forwards, downhill. This freed me up so I could finish.

And as night approached, I finished this job. All the doubts, fears, annoyances and aching shoulders faded as I contemplated the finished job. Now the road is safe and clear. I no longer have to worry about hitting this thing while using it. It was worth the pain and effort.

And this is the whole point of living life: we have to put our shoulders to the tasks at hand. We have to deal with the big, old tree stumps in the road. We have to stop ignoring these obstacles and deal forthrightly with them. Of course, we would all rather have someone else deal with these things. We don't want to feel pain or sweat in the hot sun or work for hours and hours while worrying about bad storms approaching. We want the easy road, not the hard road.

But the hard road is the real road to a good life. All philosophers, religious leaders and moralists have pointed out, the easy road is the road to Hell. The hard road is the road to Fulfillment. The easy road takes us to places we can't escape. The hard road leads us to the top of the mountain where we can see the Universe.

It is universal in all fairy tales that if one is seeking something or someone and meets a fox or an old lady or a bird or other creature which offers advice, if they say, 'Take the easy road,' they are always evil and hoping to kill, eat or thwart the seeker. When the advice is hard and involves doing distasteful, difficult and dangerous things, this is always the good advice. When the old man tells the youth to avoid the fancy hotel and sleep in the poor hut instead, the youth that goes to the fancy hotel is turned into a pig or eaten by bandits or cheated out of all his wealth while the youth that sleeps in the poor hut and then draws the water for the old lady there and feeds her geese his bread, discovers, she is really a Princess, not an old crone.

This sort of warning is universal. Cinderella is in rags, not fine dresses when the Prince comes looking for her. The Prince seeking the Firebird is ordered to use the old wooden cage, not the gold cage. The maid seeking her enchanted husband must take the shabby wooden box, not the fancy bejeweled cask. The queen must be silent for seven years while knitting the robes to throw over the seven brothers who were turned into swans. On and on it goes. In a hundred languages, across the planet. In Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas, people who haven't seen each other in thousands of years, all have these same stories with the same morals.

Here we are, on the cusp of some staggering changes that will eventually play out in the Real World. The US is like those seekers who, when meeting the fox or the winged horse on some road, refuse to listen to the advice and instead of choosing the hard road, instead of dealing with the big, old tree stump, we are sorely tempted to run off to the easy road to Hell. Instead of being careful and suspicious, we want to be credulous and gay. We want life to be fun. We want to be rich no matter what the price!

We are willing to forget seeking the Princess or the seven brothers who are now swans or rescuing our children who are menaced by goblins and cannibalistic witches. We want to wear fine clothes and sleep in fine linen beds and eat to our heart's content.

We don't want to deal with the big, old tree stumps of life. They are hard. And we want soft.

And this, in a nutshell, is why the obvious warnings sounding about us is not being heeded by the princes and princesses who rule this kingdom. Instead, they want a wizard to save them. The wizard will conjure away all the big, old tree stumps. And will pave the road. And shower them with jewels.

But history tells us otherwise. All such people end up the same way. The chronicle of failure is obvious to anyone who bothers to look. So let us roll up our sleeves and go to work. Work is good. Work is real wealth. Work is the real reward.

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Comments

[Greg Q]

Elaine...BRAVO!!!!

When I was a kid (growing up in northern NJ) my father bought our family a summer cabin near Lake George. Not too far from you. Many a summer was spent cutting trees to clear space for garages, boat shelters and to prepare firewood for campfires and heat when we would go up for weekends during off seasons.

I hated every minute of that back-breaking work at the time...but you know...enjoying those campfires and making chairs from branches and and tables from knotty stumps are some of my most cherished memories.

Heck my father even bought a tractor like yours to clear the land...what a ball I had push dirt and trees around on that thing!!!

Thanks for taking me down memory lane...You need to send this blog to George Bush, Bernanke, Paulson, et al. Those "A-Holes" need to do some honest work for a change. Don't ya think?

[Greg Q]

Elaine...BRAVO!!!!

When I was a kid (growing up in northern NJ) my father bought our family a summer cabin near Lake George. Not too far from you. Many a summer was spent cutting trees to clear space for garages, boat shelters and to prepare firewood for campfires and heat when we would go up for weekends during off seasons.

I hated every minute of that back-breaking work at the time...but you know...enjoying those campfires and making chairs from branches and and tables from knotty stumps are some of my most cherished memories.

Heck my father even bought a tractor like yours to clear the land...what a ball I had push dirt and trees around on that thing!!!

Thanks for taking me down memory lane...You need to send this blog to George Bush, Bernanke, Paulson, et al. Those "A-Holes" need to do some honest work for a change. Don't ya think?

[Gary W]

Pol Pot and his mates tried sending people into the fields to plough, dig & harvest. That didn't work out so well. Not that you don't, as ever, have a good point, but there must be a bit more to it than getting tired & dirty.

[Elaine Supkis]

Pol Pot was all about slavery. Slaves gain nothing from back breaking labor. This is the definition of slavery.

[meadows]

I'm doing the hardest work of my life right now, helping my mom die at home. It is almost completely psychological work. My brother and sister are helping, we're a team.

Mom is in denial that her narcotics are killing not just her pain but her ability to eat as well. So, she'll starve herself.... a choice many very ill people make though in her case, an non-concious one.

Work can be a struggle both pleasureable and painful and both physical and psychological.

My brother has dug clams for a living in Maine for 30 years, he is bent over from all that stoop labor but his depression and migraines are the hardest work is digging into, trying to get to the bottom of his embedded pain.

Physical suffering and pain and the "work" associated with it are hard, very hard.... but the emotional suffering from fear is the worst.

I think what Elaine is saying is that the fear and denial of the truth (avoidance of the hard work) keeps us from facing the facts, postponing what will be far more suffering down the road if we don't roll up our sleeves and dig up those old impediments.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

I got arthritis from a lifetime of honest labor. This is the price we pay for living.

And yes, hard work is hard on the body. But everyone, rich or poor, eventually has to go through the Gates of Death. And much of our lives should be arranged so we keep that in mind.

This is the basis of all religions, by the way.

[John East]

Excellent post, Elaine.

I visit here to keep abreast of the collapse of the world financial system, and instead I learn how to dig up a tree stump. However, this new knowledge is much appreciated, and it was an interesting read.

If things continue to spiral down, practical things like this will be worth knowing, and if things are even worse than we anticipate, maybe you can show us all how to build an underground bunker.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Excavation work can be fun. But my shoulders now feel the pain when the digging is hard. A hazard for anyone who does construction work for too long.

[JSmith]

"This takes some planning and care. "

And a D-8. Wrap your cable around it a couple of times, winch it up tight, and drag it right on out of there!

(You might have to turn around and run into it a couple of times, but it'll come out.)

[JSmith]

"This takes some planning and care. "

And a D-8. Wrap your cable around it a couple of times, winch it up tight, and drag it right on out of there!

(You might have to turn around and run into it a couple of times, but it'll come out.)

[Alex]

Elaine,

I whole-heartedly agree with the Message, of enlightenment via work. That was after-all the message of the Quakers, that god was to be known via the sweat of the brow... which I interpret as the clearing of the mind that stems from focused effort, and filtering-away of all that does not provision the task-at-hand.

I similarly to you, removed several tree stumps in my yard a few years ago... I had no trackor though... just a shovel and a pick... Took a month to finish the task, bit by bit, root-by-root, pursuing the belief that any task can be conquered if only one can identify that Underlying Reality that ties it all together... the Roots in this case, which need severing.

The Romans knew this as well, per their saying of "Divide and Conquer"... meaning use true knowledge (roots' location) to solve the task (remove stump)

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

I have done many a tree stump without mechanical tools. Pick axe and axe.

Dug the foundation of my house by hand, with my son.

[Dutch]

Want to remove another stump? How about shitcanning LIFETIME appointments on the Supreme Court! That would help out on the flood of lawsuits that are coming. HA!

[hardrock]

Great little story Elaine. You've tied it in to some very important 'life lessons' as well. You are just like me, once you've decided to do something quitting is out of the question. Pain and discomfort just goes with the task at hand. It is the only way to gain real satisfaction of a job well done....or a life lived well....you seem to have accomplished both and the folks out 'here' who hear what you say are benefited by your wit and wisdom. Like you say, when working hard physically one tends to think more clearly about other things. The 'back half' of the brain kinda works in a different way.

PS: I have a tractor just like yours, only a little smaller. I've dug a number of stumps out with it and it really is a jolting and troublesome job....but like you say...sure as hell beats getting em' out with a pick, shovel and axe and a team of horses as my Dad, brothers and I did for years on our farm back in the 50's. Yes, we used dynamite quite a bit....but nowadays you would have one helluva time getting your hands on it without miles and miles of red tape and a laser light up your keister.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Yes, I remember how easy it all was in the fifties and sixties to get dynamite. They sold it at the local farm goods store. We used to delight in blowing big boulders up, for example.

[GK]

Hi Elaine, I thought you might get a good laugh out of this article that includes a reference to a 'philosophical backhoe operator. ;-)

http://www.counterpunch.org/bageant04032008.html
.....

I am not kidding when I say rage fatigue victims have fallen into an ongoing mid-level depression. (Looks to me like the whole country has, but then I'm no mental health expert.) The less depressed victims can be found lurking near the edges of the Obama cult, consoling themselves that a soothing and/or charismatic orator is better than nothing.

....

And like whoever else wins the presidency, Obama can never acknowledge any significant truth, such as that the nation is waaaaay beyond being just broke, and is even a net debtor nation to Mexico, or that the greatest touch-me-not in the U.S. political flower garden, the "American lifestyle," is toast. But then, we really do not expect political truth, but rather entertainment in a system where, as Frank Zappa said, politics is merely "the entertainment branch of industry."

....

As my late friend Virgil the philosophical backhoe operator summed it up: "If we fucked everything up so bad tryin' to do our best, maybe we oughtta just leave'er be for a while. Quit thinking about it so much."

http://snipurl.com/23kr5

[Hermes Bags Sale]

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