View from the North 40: No holes? I really dig that

Forget my wedding day — Thursday, yes, this Thursday was the happiest day of my life.

Not even my 27 years of wedded, you know, marriage can compare to having a crew of professionals install 300 yards of fence posts in some of the most maddening ground known to mankind.

The ground on my property is like bipolar, schizophrenic sociopath of Earth soil substances.

It has a crazy quilt mash-up of layers of gravel, river-bottom sand, gritty sand, gumbo, hardened-to-almost-cement sand, more gumbo, more gravel, some pure, pottery-quality clay and a bit of really poor-quality coal. And mixed in among all the layers are: rocks, lots of rocks — lots and lots of fist-sized to watermelon-sized rocks, but also plenty of large-dog sized rocks and some as big as a smart car.

Mankind has compounded Nature’s chaos.

Sure it sounds romantic, for the history nerd in you, that this place has been used for mining and construction since the railroad was first being built through this area. But what it means in a practical sense is that I hit random buried materials: spikes, rusted metal parts that had been lost or discarded, charred wood and coal remnants, occasional hunks of asphalt, rock-filled pits, all buried beneath the earthen surface.

No bodies. Yet.

I commonly find three or four different layers of the earth-stuffs in one post hole. I once dug a line of post holes 10 feet apart and had four holes in a row with different soil in each one from the opening to the bottom of the hole.

I’ve spent decades digging post holes with hand tools and, when I’m lucky, with a post auger that, for those of you who don’t know, looks like I giant drill bit that attaches to a mechanism called a three-point hitch on the back of a tractor.

It’s usually a real time- and labor-saving device. Usually. Not so much at my place.

For years I had a little mound of earth behind one of my corrals. It wasn’t until I wanted to make an attached pen through that mound that I discovered it was the top of a mostly buried pile of large rocks left by the early railroad builders. Over time, the mound had gathered blown dirt and seeds and had a thin veneer of soil and grass.

It was, though, like the tip of an iceberg, such as the one that destroyed the Titanic.

The friend who was helping me with the fencing project was running the tractor, while I was rocking the auger back and forth to get past these darn rocks. (“Darn rocks” was not what I was saying at the time. I admit it.) The auger caught on a rock edge and zipped into the ground so quickly and deeply that the front of the tractor was lifting off the ground.

We dug a crater, by hand, pulling rocks and dirt out of there to free the auger. We never did get to the bottom of that pit. We were just lucky to retrieve the auger.

It took an hour and a half to set that one post.

As bad as that hole sounds, the absolute worst thing about this soil is that unless the ground is wet from the surface to the bottom of the hole, it caves in.

Need to put in a 6-inch post? Expect to dig an 18” wide hole. Even the auger will only loosen the earthy materials, so I still have to dig with shovels. Every hole. Hand tools.

I’m old and worn out and broken down. Digging post holes hurts and requires doctoring, so it’s expensive, too. Thursday wasn’t the first time I’ve tried to hire a fencing crew to put the posts in — and spare my body.

But I’ve had fully grown, strong, hail of body and, ultimately, weak of character men abandon the job of post hole digging on my property. No amount of persuasion, like “I’ll pay you more,” or “Don’t be a cry baby, you bid the job,” or “Pansy man!” could talk them into staying.

But this crew? They had the right machinery. It was a thing of beauty: a post driver — fueled by magic, I think — that drove the posts into the ground. No holes required.

The closed they came to having to dig a hole was to put an attachment on their mini-excavator. They punched a hole into the ground with it, easy as a modern miracle.

The three-man crew showed up first thing in the morning, drove 52 posts like it was nothing then packed up and left in time for an early lunch.

Here’s your bill.

Here’s your check.

Thank you, ma’am.

No. No, really — weeks’ worth of work in three hours, no nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories or trips to the doctor required — thank YOU … times one thousand, three hundred and eighty-five.

Best. Day. Ever.

(My husband and I are starting adoption proceedings, and we hope to have three hard-working, honest young sons by the end of the month at [email protected].)