We have a decent sized back yard which, apart from mowing the lawns, we've been slowly chipping away at little jobs that need doing here and there; weeding, pruning, watering, and recently Weed'n'Feeding it.
One job I had was to clear the garden bed alongside the house. It was overgrown with long grass and grapevines that were threatening to choke the air-conditioner unit. In the first couple of passes I pruned back the grapevines to their stumps, and used the whippersnipper to get the grass down to a manageable level (and also accidentally take out a couple of herb bushes that I didn't know we wanted to keep).
The next time I felt energetic in a gardening direction, I went out aiming to dig up one of the grapevine stumps.
That is a hell of a job.
With spade, fork, trowel and axe, I toiled for hours. I tried digging all around the stump in an attempt to dig all of the roots out just in case they would turn into self-supporting runners and pop a vine up somewhere else, but in the end I just had to start hacking through them to stand any chance at all. The main stump had sent out a substantial branch, the end of which had started putting down roots of its own, and that was a whole other thing to deal with.
Eventually I returned from the field of battle, hefting the root and branch like the severed head and arm of my enemy. I left behind a rough, dusty hole that the displaced dirt could only start to fill. But it was done.
Of course there are two or three other stumps to deal with on the other side of the aircon unit, but they are a battle for another day.
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