stumper
n.— «First, what the loggers call a stumper uses its arm to chop down some trees. The first batch of trees, from the start line to the edge of the property line, are laid across the swamp. The stumper’s large, tank-like track tires distribute the weight enough to let it tiptoe across the trees it has just put down. Once a road of about five layers is built, the other machinery, 25-ton tree-toters, carry the timber back to a loading dock. At the dock, small cranes hoist the tree carcasses, dip them onto a saw and then drop them into a tractor-trailer. Finally, the stumper picks up the trees it used for a bridge on the swampy land and loads them onto a truck. This job, which will take about three weeks to finish, will yield about 80 truckloads a week.» —“Discovery Channel crew gets its footing in Cumberland swamp” by John Ramsey FayObserver.com (Fayetteville, North Carolina) Aug. 20, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Astronauts returning from space say they experience what’s called the overview effect, a new understanding of the fragility of our planet and our need to reflect on what humans all share as a species. A book about the end of the universe...
Amid court-ordered busing in the 1970s, a middle-school teacher tried to distract her nervous students on the first day of class with this strange assignment: find a monarch caterpillar. The result? A memorable lesson in the miracle of metamorphosis...