A Stump Collector?

  

We were parked at the gas pump waiting for the tank to fill.  A big 4 wheel drive, bright red truck pulled up to the pump aside of us. " Look mom, that lady is a stump collector too", my son quipped from the back seat pointing to the gnarled roots of a stump he could see sticking (no pun intended) out from above the side of the truck bed.  "What, do you mean by that?  Are you calling me a stump collector?" I asked.

"Ya mom, any time we go out into the mountains, after a load of wood you say, "We can't cut this stump up , it will look nice in the yard."  I had never thought of myself as a stump collector  before.  Isn't it funny the way your kids perceive you.  A stump collector?  Well, I thought about it, and about all the stumps I have drug home over the years.  Ya, I guess I am a stump collector, but look at the cool things my stumps have become........ 

 

 

 

a bench made from stumps and an old second-hand bed frame

placed on one side of the arbor, a

perfect place to sit after a long day's work

and watch the sun set.

 

 

 

a stump to set an old wooden faerie house on

 

 

When we moved from Nevada I left quite a collection of stumps and

old twisted trunks, I wonder if the new owners cut them up for firewood?

 

Try this:

bury a tree trunk with the roots sticking up and hang bird feeders

or birdhouses from the gnarled roots,

 

or use the roots to hold a large bird bath

and grow a beautiful flowering vine up it,

 

or hollow out the middle cavity and plant flowers in it,

 

or put a trunk out in the garden and put old lamp bulbs on it

my BULB TREE has graced my gardens for many years

 

 

 

use a trunk for a bench around the fire-pit

 

 

 

What ingenious ways have you used old tree trunks or stumps? 

 I know I'm not the only "stump collector"  who drags them home!