Seth has been fighting the Bamboo Forest for the 7 years we have lived in this house. Our kids were always too young to enjoy playing in the house/fort/play area that the previous owners (and surrounding neighbors) had used it as and it was growing so out of control that it required monthly trimming which ate up a ton of Seth's time. He'd mow and work on the bamboo constantly or else it would start growing up in every crack in the driveway, the neighbor's yard, the alley area, etc. We got sick of him spending so much time maintaining it with very little value to us that we decided to get rid of it entirely.
So, he asked for money and time for his birthday last year. Money to rent equipment and time from his dad (and brother) because it was such a tremendous project it couldn't be completed in one day by one person. It's taken us nearly a year to use the gift, but it has now been used and I'm so excited that Seth will have time back! Mostly to work on other maintenance things like general tree trimming, leaf collection, edging, etc. without totally eating into our weekends.
His dad met him at The Home Depot bright and early Saturday morning to haul the tractor to our house (we don't have a vehicle with a hitch) and they got to work right away. The boys were more than anxious to watch so we ate breakfast in a hurry and they threw clothes on faster than I've ever seen. In not too long, I had a whole seating section set up so they could watch, but still remain a safe distance away from the tractor. They were told their butts needed to remain in their chairs or else we'd have to go back inside. They did a very good job obeying that rule!
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The tractor itself seemed so tiny,
but it dug up the roots far better than a person could have! |
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Seth shows off one of the many roots+runners clumps.
This is why bamboo is so hard to maintain.
It regrows and regrows until you take out the root system. |
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| Some of the "treasures" found in the forest. |
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| a runner coming out... |
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| The sunlight makes this hard to see, but it was like 10 feet long. |
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| Another giant clump of root system! |
Later that morning, Spencer arrived with Ireland and Turner and after playing in the back yard, watching the bigs so I had a chance to shower, etc, they wanted to get in on the bamboo removal. Each took a turn with Spencer, but I didn't get a picture of Turner on the tractor with his dad.
This next picture is a little hard to see, but Seth is driving the tractor, Turner is to the left of the tree cutting down bamboo shoots with a clippers and Spencer is behind the tractor wearing a red shirt, using his pickaxe. You can see it up over his head. He was chopping away at roots too close to the retaining wall to use the tractor safely.
Halfway through the day, Spencer took a full truck load to the dump (Load one of two) and he and Seth grabbed some food from Braums on their way home (sweet tea, hotdogs, buns, chips, etc). In hindsight, I should have thought of that before, but these hard workers needed some serious food come lunch. (I should have gone the night before and stocked up on lunch supplies, but it never occurred to me and then we had a house full of people I couldn't feed. And too many kids that I couldn't leave the house!) I was fixing plate after plate of food for everyone and then sat in the dining room with the daddies to try to eat my own plate of food. I almost had to move, the smell of them was so strong! lol. I guess it was a good thing they were all done and got up to leave soon after I sat down.
The one thing I'm happy I thought to do was use the big insulated mugs for ice water for the daddies (the hospital ones) and insulated kid straw cups for the kids. Even though the cups were in the shade, away from the work, the tops were still always covered in dirt and I felt good about them not drinking tons of it and always having cold ice water available. Seth drank tons, but still required a Powerade later that evening, so I guess in hindsight I'd think of that in advance too. I'd have sent everyone home with a Powerade as a thank you. I did send the kids home with a Capri Sun, but should have had some legit re-hydrating liquid available.
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| When the tractor was having a break, we put everyone to work! |
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| Ireland |
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| Austin |
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| More tractoring, more clumps. |
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| Bamboo Clearing Team minus Gramps who was napping inside with AC |
Once the bamboo was chopped up and removed, they used the tractor almost as a till to just break up all the dirt which is why it looks lumpy. Seth talks about having to re-grade it all by hand, so I guess we're not exactly done. You get charged $200 for not cleaning off the machine well, so Seth hosed it down and then gave our boys a ride on its way out to the trailer.
