Jensens, move that root!

Clint's parents used to have a pine tree plagueing their house. I say "plagueing" because it lived in the front yard next to the driveway...and it would shed needles. How do we know that? Because of the pine needles we'd clean off of the cars after parking there. And the tree housed a condor. How do we know THAT? Because Grandpa Scott told us that's the only thing that could leave the size of doo-doo that was left on the cars parked in the driveway that was next to the pine tree. And Grandpa Scott is a smart man. And, beside that, it made sense to us. A+B=C.
Not too long ago my in-laws hired some tree extractioners to extract the tree. The next time we visited, the tree was gone. We assumed the job was done...until this past Saturday.
Saturday was actually very entertaining. We went to San Jose to celebrate my brother-in-law's birthday. After the brunch and party, we went outside to help (or watch, which is what Jace and I were doing) the gardener put in the new plants and trees in the front yard. Or, at least that's what he was doing until he found "the root."
A couple of the men (and Cameron) grabbed a shovel and started digging to detect the size of this so-called root. What they found was an underground tree. After digging for a while, it was apparent that this tree would not be removed by digging. So everyone stood around offering their ideas on a way to get this tree out of the ground.
Several ideas surfaced during the brain storming session. Unfortunately, we were able to try each and every plan.
Plan number 1: Dig it out. We knew from the previous 20 minutes that this wasn't going to be the most effecient plan. Next?
Plan number 2: Crunch it up. For the next several minutes my brother-in-law stabbed the mass of exposed wood with a large crowbar. As it was a dying piece of wood, it shredded the top layer, but that was all. Sigh.
Plan number 3: Pull it out. The Jensens own this beefy Suburban. My other brother-in-law was directed to go retreive the Suburban...and a large chain. This was bound to be the most hopeful (and most entertainig) idea by far. After digging with the shovel and poking with the crowbar, there was a sufficient space cleared out around the root. The boy scouts stepped forward to tie the chain, in what I believe they said was a couple of half-hitch knots, around the log. We moved into what we deemed to be "safe territory" in case the chain broke and ricocheted around the front yard. We all waited for the surburban to lurch forward, as the sound of splitting wood and moving dirt rang in our ears. And we waited. And waited. The only sound we heard was the tires squealing on the pavement. Another attempt was made from another angle. This time we heard metal break and saw an old padlock, that was once on the chain, fly into the dirt. But that was all. The suburban didn't move. The log didn't even move. Not even the dirt surrounding the log moved. We moved on to another plan
Plan number 4: Cut it out. By this time, the neighbor sharing the property line came to offer his advice--he owned a little saw (I can't remember what he called it but it looked like an over-sized jig saw). One brother cut straight down. Another brother cut at an angle. The only amount of productivity came when Dad, who was fixing the pool, asked to have a pvc pipe cut. That worked. Too bad the root wasn't the size of that pipe.
Plan number 5: Call the tree people. Clint was able to impress all with his Portuguese-inspired Spanish as he spoke with a man, then his wife, about coming back out to the house to remove the secondary tree housed beneath the ground. Halfway through the conversation, the wife revealed that she knew English. She said they'd come as soon as they could. I guess we'll see if we need plan number 6.