Swinging the mattock

Getting on for a couple of years ago I took the stump snap above, in the course of clearing up after the ravages of the box tree caterpillar, last noticed at reference 2. Although the real point of the snap was to show the empty space where the box trees had been, before two young yew bushes were planted to replace them.

The stump left, as it happens, was the stump of another yew, taken down many years previously to give the then neighbouring box trees a bit more light. I kicked it from time to time, but hitherto it had always seemed pretty solid. However, yesterday, in the course of walking my bricks, I thought that it wasn't. So out with the demolition mattock and about twenty swings later the stump was out. Swelling out to a bit of a ball just below ground level, but seemingly without a serious tap root in the way of some trees - this despite probably being a natural seedling rather than some nursery raised confection.

With the mattock at the bottom of the snap above (from Bing out of eBay) being very much the sort of thing in question. But the point of interest is how twenty serious swings of such a thing does not seem to involve a lot of movement, but leaves one puffing a bit, as if one had just climbed up a reasonably serious hill. One must be using a lot more muscles than one realises.

And in my case anyway, the days are long gone when I could swing such a thing for hours at a time. Twenty swings is about my limit.

PS: pleased that I was able to recover the snap above, from archive, in about five minutes. System works!

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/caterpillar-control-episode-2.html. The clearing up.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/04/posh-cabbage-patch.html. The last notice.