With the completion of yesterday’s Project, I tackled two more today: digging up the footing for a long-gone fountain (I presume it was a fountain, at least; I can’t think of any other reason to run a half-inch copper pipe inside a two-inch iron casing with a half-inch PVC supply line running away from it, the whole then embedded in two feet of concrete footing) and finishing the chopping-up of a large branch that fell off one of my pecan trees in September.
The footing was relatively easy to get out. I’d already dug down nearly a foot, and a few days ago I ran a root-watering spike in the hole for several hours to saturate and soften the black-clay soil. After cutting out several roots that were in the way, I dug out some more of the soil (more like firm mud), then got a crowbar and started prying around. With only a few minutes of that, the concrete came loose from the hole and I was able to lift it out and carry it over to the pile of fencepost footings I’ve already dug out of the yard. Whoever put things in around here was thorough and workmanlike about it, because everything I’ve found has been set in twenty-four inches of concrete, but some later householder was a lot less conscientious about removal, because they’ve all been sawed off short a quarter-inch to half-inch above ground level, and I’ve located them through the scientific process of stepping on them—usually barefoot. I’m trying to be charitable and believe that the cuts were at ground level when they were done, but each time I step on some new chunk of sharp metal débris, my level of charity recedes.
Once that was done I dug out the chain saw again and started cutting on the fallen limbs, part of a branch system I’ve gradually disposed of across the fall. While I was doing all this, I also demonstrated just why you wear heavy boots when working with chain saws, when a branch I was holding down with one foot snagged the chain, which then kicked back and slashed across the toe of my right foot. Fortunately, all I got was scars from the saw teeth across the toe-cap of my boot, but it was still alarming.
