Decided to surprise my neighbor by working out in his yard

The other day I saw my neighbor cutting back some bushes in his yard. Not uncommon to see in Suburbia, USA. A few days later I saw he had cut them all the way down down to the stump and was frantically using a come-a-long to try to pull them out, to less than ideal results. Now, my neighbor is not young and had a fairly extensive neck surgery last winter and to see him doing this was concerning, I didn't want him to hurt himself, so I went to talk to him. He said the project had taken more time than he had for it and was mad he couldn't get back to it for couple weeks. He was pulling the stumps so he could lay more grass. So I decided when he went to work the next day, I would go over and pull the stumps for him. Without telling him. Surprise.

It wasn't all that hard to do. I used my ax, a Fiskar x27, to break up the ground and split the main root system of the four stumps. Unlike my palm tree stump removal last month this was a typical root system so not all that difficult to accomplish. As I pulled the stumps out by hand, I used a reciprocating saw to cut any small roots that where holding it in underneath. 

I didn't start with the reciprocating saw until after I cleanly sliced through my neighbors drip system pipe with an ax swing, man that was too easy. I realized I needed a little finesse when it came to working around the pvc pipes so I started using the saw to churn up the hard soil and map out the pipe line. I debated on running up to the hardware store to get a new pvc pipe to glue in a repair, but I am not a perfect neighbor, he can fix the damn pipe himself. I did the dirty work. Even though he didn't ask me too. Okay, so I am still a bit conflicted over the cut. 

It didn't take long to pull the four stumps out but it was a lot of good swings with the ax during a typical Sonoran Desert summer day. I was glad to be done and even more glad to not get caught doing a good deed. 

When I told Mistress what my plan was earlier in the day, she was very point blank in her response, "You're going to pull those stumps so you can use it as a workout.. Aren't you?" Gulp. Guilty. Who says a good deed can't benefit the person doing it too?