Filbert and Ernie

I needed to get some energy out tonight, so I went outside to check on the garden and the mole traps I set yesterday. No moles, but there was a filbert growing alongside one of the azaleas by where one of the traps was and the branches were getting to me, so I pulled it out.

I got the come-along, you know - a cable ratchet, hand cranked winch, and my trucker chain. With the chain wrapped around the base of one of the old deck posts and the come-along attached to the filbert and the chain (I actually had to whittle the main trunk of the filbert to get the come-along hook to hook around it). Well about 5 minutes of cranking on it and the thing just pulled out of the ground; luckily filberts have shallow roots and no tap root.

Anywho... I got to thinking about the filbert that is under the rhododendron out front and thought since I have the come-along out, might as well tackle that one as well. That one has been under there for as long as we have owned the house and since it is hard to get to, I have just cut back the trunks that show out of the rhody to keep it looking nice. Well, that rhody is dying now, probably because of this filbert, so it doesn't have a lot of branches any more and I was able to get under the rhody to get at the filbert.

It was not as easy as the first one. It took about a half hour of digging around it, an extra rope that I wasn't sure would hold made for some "excitement"; I was hoping I wouldn't be at the business end of the hook if that rope broke. The pick axe helped a lot as it was hard to get the shovel in there with all the surface roots. There is a nice hole in the front now where that filbert was and although a little sore, I am glad to have it out of there.

**If you are curious about the title for this post, I have had a hard time in the past remembering the name of these trees so some time ago, Aimee would give me a clue, "Bert and Ernie", which turned into what is in the title.