Blog 3564 – 08.07.2025

How To Eat An Elephant

This weekend my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Esther and David Survance are planning to pull a twenty foot 2005 Trail-Lite R-Vision Bantam Travel Trailer that I purchased last spring from a friend in Lafayette, Indiana to my property in Bon Wier, Texas. They live in Indianapolis, Indiana and picked the trailer up in March and have been storing it for me at their home till they could make the trek to Texas.

I was hoping to have a campsite completed for the trailer before it arrived. For several months now I have had power and water on the property and two heavy duty chain gates as well as a walk-through gate at 1000 FM 1416, Bon Wier, Texas where the timber property is located. My son Jay purchased sixty acres of timber property last year and I purchased two fifteen acres tracts adjacent to his since then hoping to help him realize his Hundred Acre Wood dream.

We plan to use the RV camper trailer initially as a resting place on my weekly trips to the property and Jay’s less frequent hunting and fishing trips there. Yes, we have a sweet pond on the place and our game cameras have snapped shots of deer, ducks, and even a big black wild bore.

We also hope that having a cool place to rest with facilities will encourage the ladies in our lives, my wife Linda, Jay’s wife Lauren, and his precious two year old daughter Emma Grace to find the One Hundred Acre Wood a more attractive place.

I spent half a day at the property yesterday. Well a good deal of that was driving there and back from Houston. I had in mind taking out one tree on the campsite to have a little more room maneuvering the trailer in place near the water and power, but also to make it possible to put out the awning when we are in residence.

One of the phrases in my daily mantra goes, “Whatsoever my hands find to find to do this day, I will do with my whole heart finding purpose in even the most menial and repetitive of tasks.” I figured that taking out the tree would be a difficult and a time consuming task especially as it is so hot and humid at the property this time of year that cool breaks in the A/C of my pickup are required every few minutes.

I only had my Craftsman battery operated reciprocating saw with me and since I only had three batteries and had forgotten to bring a charger I knew I had to be careful with my cuts. I made the first cut about three feet up from the ground so that I could guide the approximately eight foot diameter over twenty foot tall tree down without hitting the power lines. I brought it down on some bushes along the fence line and cut off the limbs and drug them to a brush pile at the edge of the campsite clearing. I was just about out of battery on the third battery when I completed the last cut through the fallen trunk which enabled me to move the two large pieces out of the way.

All I had left to remove was the three foot tall stump and its root ball. After giving that task some thought on one of my cooling off breaks, I decided to use one of the heavy duty tow chains that I had purchased for the two chain gates and a third one to secure the trailer to a large pine tree to discourage would-be thieves from dragging it off. (Note: the site has camera surveillance 24/7 and might at anytime also be guarded by Smith and Wesson, Beretta, Ruger, AK-47, 303, or twelve-gauge shot gun so trespassers, poachers, and thieves beware.)

But, back to the stump and root ball. My four wheel drive 2015 Dodge Ram has a heavy duty bumper on front with hooks for pulling and with a heavy duty tow chain we were more than a match for the task and were able to have the stump and root ball out in no time. All that remained was to move the stump and root ball out of the way and shovel sand in the hole that taking them out had left.

Now we are ready for our little house on wheels in the wild woods to arrive. If you are confronted with a seemingly impossible or difficult task just remember how to eat an elephant – one bite at a time.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White