I dug out another old posthole yesterday. This one had the complication of being right beside a second old posthole. So, there were two blobs of concrete and rotted timber. Talk about hard. Rather than try and extract everything in one piece as I did on the last hole, I opted to bring it out piecemeal. I picked up and dropped my metal digging bar more times that I care to remember. My shoulders and hands are sore this morning. Eventually, I got everything to a satisfactory depth, and today I’ll try to set new poles.

While I’m waiting for those poles to set, I’ll dig a hole for the last pole on the new pumphouse shed. I’ve got a nice straight piece of cypress ready to go. It’s only about three inches in diameter, and the digging for this one should be relatively easy, although I’ve been surprised in the past. Our soil is sandy, but it’s a fine sand and when it packs down it can make a shovel ring. So, I won’t be surprised if I have to dig to refusal, put in water to loosen the sand, wait, then dig again. Repeat if necessary. Ah, the joys of manual labor.

Of course, to a degree, I enjoy manual labor. As a young married man, it was my release from a day of mental grinding in the office, especially in summer when the days were long. And more recently during my wife’s illness, I spent about three springs on my hands and knees digging up khaki weeds from my lawn. Sweating felt good. And now I’m back at it for no particular reason other than there’s work to be done and given my age, if someone’s going to find lying in the dirt, it might as well be well-tended.