Trench for Bamboo Barrier – Part III
2006.05.06
Nate agreed to come over and help me work on the trench again today. I got rolling around 8:30 AM. I called Interstate Rentals to see if they had a post auger available. They did, so I went down to get it. With a brand new motor, this time we should get some good use out of it, especially with Nate running the machine, ha.
While I waited for him to show up, I cleared off some more weeds and gravel to the full extent of the area that the barrier needs to surround.
Nate arrived, and I gave him a couple pointers on running the post auger, and then let him get to it. While he dug holes with the post auger, I followed behind with the shovel and wheelbarrow and scooped out the loose debris. After a couple minor mishaps, he got the hang of it, and we made surprising progress breaking up that tough top layer.
Eventually though, we had to take a long break, as Nate was pretty much spent from running that beast of a machine.
We made a run to Home Depot for some things he needed, and then ate lunch before heading back. We worked on clearing out some of the loose fill from the holes created by the post auger.
As I was working at one end of the trench, closer to the street, I kept running into something solid. After digging around it for a while, I discovered the obstruction was a large tree root, about 2 inches in diameter. Lovely. There is a huge lombardy poplar tree by the sidewalk, which straddles the property line between my place and the apartment complex. I don’t know whose tree it is, but it’s about half dead, and I estimate 70 – 80 feet tall. At any rate, this root was in my way, and it’s not like I’m worried about killing the tree, since, as I said, that’s already happening. So I got my miter saw out and hacked it off.
After digging for a while, I decided to run the post auger to break up the ground some more. In some areas, the ground seems to be harder than others, so Nate didn’t get as far down with the post auger on the first run. Disbelieving that I could even run the thing, Nate grabbed my camera and waited to see this unfold. In a blow to my pride, I couldn’t manage to start it, even pulling the cord right-handed, so I had to have Nate come over and pull the starter cord. But then I was able to operate the post auger for a little while, much to his amusement.
As usual, I had taken most of the appropriate precautions, wearing safety glasses, earmuffs, and a dust mask, not to mention wearing jeans (although no steel-toed boots). After I quit, Nate gave it another go for a few minutes. Note the lack of safety equipment, and wearing shorts and some kind of leather slippers. This says a lot about the two of us. (For the record though, for most of the day when Nate was running the post auger, he did wear safety glasses and my earmuffs.)
Nate took off after that, in the late afternoon. I took the post auger back to Interstate Rentals, and then returned and did some more digging of the loose fill. We really made more progress than it looks like in the photos, as there is still a lot of loose or fairly loose material in the trench. Still a ways to go though.
Barrier Trench, Part II