I recently cut down some trees in my parking lot. But the chainsaw can only cut so low to the ground before you have to leave a stump.

I knew I had to get rid of the stump and so yesterday I went about getting out one of the two stumps.

We planted our trees about 8 years ago from saplings that were about 1-2 metres in height. I’m not sure what the English is for these trees, but in Japanese they are called to-ne-ri-ko (トネリコ).

These trees grew fast and they served us well. They provided us with shade, protection from the wind, and privacy from neighbours. Plus, they were beautiful. In my opinion, there is too little green planted in many cities. Here in Naruto, Japan we live in one of the many countrysides outside of the big cities. Yet I’ve noticed here in Japan and when I go back to Canada that many new houses and housing areas have small yards and very little green to them. If I was a leader in charge of something, I would decree that all new houses MUST plant at least one tree in their yard.

So, why did we cut down the tree?

The housing plots are very small in Japan in general and our trees were planted on the edge of our property. There comes a point when you feel the plant is just too big for its location. Had we other land to use, I would have gladly re-planted the trees but we just don’t have any other land to use so they had to go.

The picture above shows what I dug out yesterday with a shovel, crowbar and small handsaw. The top 2 centimetres were above ground while the rest was underground. It took about 2 hours to get it all out.

It’s all done and today I’m happy, sad and sore. I’m happy to have dug out the root. I’m sad that the trees are gone. And, I’m sore from all of the work. I’ll be better soon, and maybe the exercise was good for me.

And so, life continues.