Paul's nephew Chris was kind enough to come down and dig the stump out. He used a variety of tools and through sheer brute force removed it a few feet below the surface. At it's widest cross-section the stump was over 5 feet wide. As Chris worked, Sammy supervised from his sandbox.
Later on in the day it got kind of hazy. Paul thought it was from the smokers who gather 50' outside the entrance to his building at work. Later we found out it was smoke blown in from a fire way up in the Gunflint Trail (several hundred miles away!).
What follows are some snapshots from today...
Chris swinging the pickax...
...until the pickax yielded...
...so Chris switched to using a shovel...
...Chris preparing to haul away part of the stump...
...a casualty...a walnut tree was starting to grow out of the stump...
...Sammy demonstrates that...
...like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives...
...like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives...
...don't even think it...that is just the camera angle...
...Sammy was concentrating...
...so intensely...
...that he created a gravitational field...
...so powerful...
...that even the tree was unable to resist...
...so intensely...
...that he created a gravitational field...
...so powerful...
...that even the tree was unable to resist...
...watering down the soil Chris repacked over where the stump was...
...notice the birds grabbing a free drink...
...notice the birds grabbing a free drink...
...squinting into the sun, Sammy directs Chris's work...
...Sammy having fun in his sandbox...
