Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Carlton
When I was a kid, I dug 27 post holes by hand for a retaining wall during the summer. That's actually a true story, I'm sad to say.
|
I remember back in the olden days watching This Old House and Bob Vila and he was showing how to dig a post hole. Of course it was nice black loamy soil that was super easy to dig in. I always wanted them to come film that in my back yard in the height of a dry summer. I have pure clay. Great stuff to make bricks, clean out the organic material, bake into bricks. When dry from no rain for a while, it is almost the same.
In the summer digging into it required a pick-axe to break it up and than a shovel to remove the pieces. If it is wet, or just moist, it requires a lot more scrapers. Shove the post hole digger in, lift, than scrape off the gooey mess much like pottery clay, then use a scraper on the scraper to clean it off, and scraper on the scraper to scrape off that mess. Repeat.
The only logical way to dig is when fairly dry and with powered hydraulic equipment. It took me a lot of work to put in my sprinkler system. Dang near killed me.