Well not much of a stump but these two pics have story to tell.
These two pictures in post #106 represent many things..living life to the fullest, never giving up, staying sharp, the list could go on.
I have farmed a small piece of ground since about 1985 or 86. My farm adjoins it at one corner. The man that owns it was an engineer for Alcoa. It runs from the top of the Mississippi River bluff to the bottom and is heavily wooded. He bought it just to have a place to come out and shoot on the weekends as he still lived up in the cities. We always figured when he retired he would build a house out here. Well as luck would have it when he was about to retire he ended up buying a house near it very cheap and never built. About 15 years ago tragedy struck as one morning he awoke and rolled over in bed to find his wife had passed away. I know it was devastating.
Now when some envision a farm field they think of flat and square. This field has no shape. Those of you familiar with farming or simple area calculations will understand this. The field is only 12.4 acres and it is just a bit over 1 mile around the outer edge. That should give you an indication of shape. After end rows in some places one pass produces point rows thus best suited for seeded crops. It has hills valleys and ditches all around. Well over the years the field really started getting a lot of brush growth around the edges. There was a lot of mult-flora rose and small trees. My father took our dozer around it several times and then my brother did again about 10 years ago. It had been 10 years since it had been dozed around and even then all my brother did was a cursory job just taking out the briars. On January 1st of this year I commenced to getting the edges of that field cleaned correctly. I cut 7 days a week and burned a huge amount of tires with the brush. Of course along the way I cut a lot of firewood. When spring came I had about 2/3 done but it was the worst 2/3 at least. I sprayed all the stumps with Tordon so hopefully they will not be back. This summer I put hundreds of gallons of Glyphosate and 2-4-D around it and every night I can take my doogie for a one mile ride around it.
Now the whole time I worked on it I never saw the owner. I am not an obit watcher and I began to wonder if the sweet elderly man was still around. I had not seen him in years and last talked with him on the phone about 5 years ago. He just mails me the rental agreement each year and I mail a check back. I pay at the beginning of the year so the last time I sent a check was January of 2022. My neighbor that adjoins the place and I talk regularly and he had not seen the owner in years either.
Well one day last week I had just gotten home from work and sat down at the computer before going out to start my work at home . My phone rang and it was my neighbor at the end of the road which adjoins the land. He said "Bill there is a white Ford truck parked in your bean field and it has been there quite awhile. The man's arm is hanging out the window and it has not moved in a long time, do you know who it is?" It surprised me a bit and I said "I think that might be Bill's (his name is Bill also) he used to have a truck like that but I have not seen it in years. I told my neighbor I would come down.
I knew when I headed down this was going to be an adventure. See my neighbor is a retired officer and avid gun owner. He works in a local gun store during the day and carries two sidearms at all times. When I got there he had one in his right hand in his pocket and another on the left. We approached slowly and the mans arm never moved. At this point my heart sank as I really started to believe he had passed away. We got close enough you could see through the side mirror that it was in fact the landowner but he was slumped over and not moving. We stood looking at him for a bit and my neighbor said well his chest moved he is alive. At that point he woke up and looked at us and "said oh I just get tired so I took a bit of a nap."
We went on to talk for well over an hour and he had came up to see what the field looked like and wanted to cut a few trees. The man is 84 years old. He said he felt bad he had not come up and helped me in the winter/spring. Well of course he had NOTHING to feel bad about. After the three of us talked for an hour he said "well I think I am going cut a few of these trees here" I just figured he had a battery saw or a bow saw. As he neighbor and I were walking out of the field we could here the familiar "whack". I did not turn around to see. I figured if the nice man wanted to go out having a heart attack while doing what he wanted I have no business interfering. I went back about 40 minutes later and he had left and I saw the "stump" and partials that I pictured.
I figure we would all be lucky to be able to do that at age 84. He made me feel real bad as I guess he still burns a little wood and has been coming up picking up a few pieces from time to time. I only cut junk trees because my outdoor boiler will burn all species. I now need to round up some nice seasoned wood for him and deliver it to his front porch. I really do not have any good stuff. I have some walnut, cherry and ash logs that were junk trees I cut last winter but they are still logs so that will not work. I will figure out something
Definitely two bars! Im guessing there's a power head attached to the one with the tip barley showing , and probably smashed to piece's! 
butā¦you say there was a bunch of metalā¦oy
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