Rather than devote all of my energy to the house and related projects, since we've returned from vacation I've tried to find a balance. I work for a couple of hours every evening, and then I relax in some way.

One night I chopped down the locust trees. Another night I cleaned the workshop and hung pegboard (and tools on the pegboard). Another night I spent my time driving from store to store, pricing routers and hatchets and digging spades. Tonight I spent a couple of hours digging the locust stumps.

I've never been particularly adept at digging stumps. Some people will tell you that the best way to remove a stump is to tie one end of a chain to a car and the other end to a stump and then to p-u-l-l with the car. To my mind, that's a recipe for disaster. I've heard enough horror stories about flying stumps and busted cars that this isn't an option for me. Besides, I've actually enjoyed the manual labor aspect of doing chores around the new house.

So, with advice from the internet, my new digging spade, and my new spud bar, I tackled the stumps last night. (A spud bar is a heavy steel bar with a round, blunt end for tamping earth and a sharp, flat edge for breaking roots.)

My basic approach was this: starting with the smallest stump, I cut a circle around the tree using the digging spade (digging out from the stump, not toward it). Then, I stabbed the seventeen-pound spud around this circle, toward the stump, over and over and over again. The spud bar chops through the roots quite effectively, though larger roots require more effort.

The first stump was relatively easy. After one pass around the perimeter with the spud bar, the trunk was already loose. A little hacking on the thicker roots pried the thing free.

The second stump took more work. After the first pass around the perimeter with the spud bar, the trunk was as immobile as ever. I had to methodically break roots and loosen earth with the spud bar, then remove the loose dirt with the digging spade (while simultaneously widening the trench). I repeated this several times til, like a loose tooth, a single, stubborn tap-root remained.

I fetched my axe. I swung away, but almost immediately the axe broke; the head snapped from the handle. I sighed and returned to chopping with the spud bar.

Eventually, the stump came free.

Seventeen pounds may not seem like much, but after a while, it seems like a ton. Toward the end of the second stump, blisters had developed on my hands — through my gloves — and my arms felt like jelly. Still, I continued to hack.

When I had finished, I was soaking wet, not from rain, but from sweat. My shirt and socks and pants were soaked through. When I went to pick Kris up from the bus stop, she believed I'd been outside in a downpour, but it was only my manly perspiration.

I was wet because of seventeen pounds.

Coincidentally, seventeen pounds is the amount of weight I've gained since we first saw the house on May the seventh. That's nearly all of the twenty pounds I lost earlier this year.

Yes: I am an idiot. And a Roth. Which makes me a compulsive eater. (But, damn: the lamb platter from Nicholas' Lebanese restaurant was good last night. Jeremy will be pleased (not!) with my lamb platter belches as I help him with his flooring this weekend.)

This morning, I got out of the shower — oh, how I long for a bathtub! — and, in my sleepy state, I stood at the passage from the dining room to the study, gazing at a mirror. I looked fat. But what really caught my eye was the way in which the mirror held multiple reflections. If I stood in just the right way, I could see three mes: one me in the long mirror to the right, and two mes in the small mirror in front of me. And the two mes were split. The me on the left was actually the right half of me, and the me on the right was actually the left half of me. Creepy.

Tomorrow: my long-awaited Proust entry. I promise. (Threaten?)

On this day at foldedspace.org

2003 — Hot Head   In which I have a hot head. In which time passes quickly.