This weekend I had to perform a task I have been putting off a while: removing a tree stake.
The fault is really my own, of course. When we moved into this house, the previous owners had planted a small tree between us and the Western Neighbors and had staked it with a metal 5' stake (the green ones) to help keep the tree upright. It worked; the tree flourished and grew. Until it grew right over the stake and pushed it over into the relatively new fence.
We have lived here 8 years now. This should not have come as a surprise.
My first thought, of course, was "I will pull it out". Unfortunately for me, the tree had over grown at least 6 inches of the stake. No brute strength of mine - or anyone's - was going to remove it.
Doing a quick "Make myself smarter" search (otherwise known as an InterWeb search), I found some had used a car jack (by getting the lip of the jack underneath one of the protrusions on the stake). It seemed like a reasonable idea and I have a shop jack at home (not one of those minor "comes with your car" jacks), so it was worth a try.
In principle, it worked very well. In practice, not so much. The stake was simply more stuck than the jack could move (that, and the protuberances are not that long).
"Well", I slowly reasoned as put the jack back, "I could try and cut it..."
It turns out they do in fact make saw blades for metal.
Cutting one of these stakes is a daunting task at the face if. I have used the stakes. You have too. You know have stiff and unbendable they are. The idea that somehow I am going to cut my way through seems ridiculous on the face of it. Except that ruining a fence because I did not pull the stake out seems more ridiculous, so down on my knees I get to start cutting.
The angle is good, so I start cutting. And cutting. And cutting. I can see myself cutting into the stake, so I confidently drop the saw and try pulling. Nope, still solid. So I keep cutting. The saw is now at the level of the upper hillside and every cut drags the upper body of the saw into the dirt (so now I have to clean it as well).
I try again. Still nothing.
I keep cutting. By this point (it feels like forever, but really it is just maybe 15 minutes), I start the see the saw cutting through the other leg of the stake. When it breaks through, I stop and pull again.
The upper part of the stake separates from the lower part like model pieces coming out of a plastic sprue.
I temporarily heap up some of the aforementioned disturbed hillside dirt to cover the stake and confidently march back in to dispose of it in the trach. I look at the end I cut: it is a clean cut - but I still cannot bend the upper part of the stake. It is solid.
I am struck in that moment by a truth.
Many things are perceived to be solid, unbendable, unbreakable. They are. Even when they start to be cut into or sectioned out, they still maintain their strength - until one hits a tipping point, a structural integrity change which is often invisible to everyone. The same amount of pressure or force is applied, but suddenly things separate as if they had never been together in the first place.
People who believe that they know limits of such things and how much something can be "stressed" often do not. It is only when it falls apart in their hands they realize that they have cut or destroyed too deeply or too much.
By then, of course, it is too late to do much of anything.
A metaphor for life, perhaps.
ReplyDeleteAnother might be where you intend to break or cut something along predetermined lines, but when it comes apart... it doesn’t come apart the way you want it to...
Fair point Glen. In my particular case, I did not have a predetermined line, I just needed it out (I got fairly close to where I meant to be). But yes, the more complex the system, the less likely it is to come apart just as one had thought.
DeleteWas there not enough room to push the top of the stake to and fro first to help loosen the base before attempting to pull?
ReplyDeleteThe do make a fence post puller for those with only a few, but my preferred method is a tractor and length of chain. I can't imagine trying to cut one with a hacksaw. Glad you got it done.
Ed, I tried - unfortunately, there was less than foot between the stake and the fence board. Ideally, I suppose I could have removed the fence board and pulled it from the neighbor's yard (I did think of that, but it was nailed in, not screwed in, so not as good a deal and even at that, no guarantee).
DeleteI would have used a farm jack - I have one - but it is back at The Ranch. A tractor would have been ideal but alas, suburbia. The hacksaw honestly took much less time than I thought.
And here we stand in bent, grown over, half-cut... America...
ReplyDeletePeople pretend materials are impervious all the time when anything is subject to fracture. The same is true of states.
DeleteHaving watched my husband wrestle with trying to remove stubborn t-posts from the ground, I admit I got a chuckle out of your description of dealing with it. Plus, you discovered a profound truth in the experience! Dan's stake wrestling usually leaves him a bit too grumpy for such epiphanies.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, do not let my reasoned words in the after report mislead you. My vocabulary at the time was filled, as the Star Trek IV saying goes, with "colorful metaphors". It was only after report, when I tend to talk to myself, that I gathered some clarity.
Delete