Two weeks ago I rented a stump grinder. This is a big bad machine with two big rubber wheels. It has 2 wheel drive. You have to swing it back and forth, up and down, by hand.
I have used this same machine to grind 20 stumps several years ago and it worked great. But that was on flat land.

So now, I had to grind stumps on this little hill. I ground the first stump, and then went straight downhill to get another one 3 feet away.
But, the wheels were in the sawdust from the first stump.
The heavy machine got stuck in that sawdust and wouldn't back up. I could not manipulate the machine and finish the second stump. I had to go forward, down off the little hill. I realized that this machine was very difficult to work on a hill. I put it back in the pickup and returned it to the rental place. The rental was supposed to cost $195 for the day, but the rental guys told me that machine doesn't work well on hills, they charged me only $35.











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[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

This is the same stump that I couldn't get with the rental machine. This big machine with the tracks just ate the stump up in about one minute. It worked well on the hill.
The rental place is 30 miles from my house. So, I spent 2 hours driving, car costs for driving 120 miles, and a total of 5 hours, plus $35 on rental costs, in order to grind one and a half stumps.

The pros made a killing, they worked for an hour and ten minutes for $600. But, the stumps are gone!
Eight of these stumps were locust. I thought about attacking them with the chain saw, I could just see myself destroying several chains and working real hard for a small result. It was time to call in the pros.