As a digger of hunnerts a post holes in my yout I can definitely say diggin post holes in the winter is damn hard work compared to summer by about 10 to 1. There's really only one way to get post holes in winter:
> Try asking at the local Home Despot service desk if > they can order the preformed post holes for you...they're > expensive, but they save time and effort.
It's true, preformed post holes do save time and effort, but they don't have to be expensive. You can make your own. We always did.
When stretching fence out on the Nebraskan prairies my dad and I would cut posts from the osage orange trees along the shelterbelts. Osage is so resistant to decay each post would outlast 6 or 8 holes, so we were always digging more post holes than cutting new posts. As long as we were at it, we would dig a couple extra post holes along each line of fence. At the end of the week we'd haul these extra holes home and stack them up like cord-wood out behind the barn. It was no trouble because they weighed next to nothing. After a few years there would be enough that we wouldn't have to dig any holes for a whole season. This worked well until one year we had about a hundred of them stacked up there. We went to pull out a few, the stack let go and they all rolled down across the pasture. We've been tripping over those post holes ever since.
-- John Leeke, Wabash, Nebraska, 1958
For more on fence posts and the holes to put them in go to the Historic HomeWorks library:
http://www.historichomeworks.com/HHW/QA/qa03.htm
John Leeke, American Preservationeer by hammer and hand great works do stand by pen and thought best words are wrought
Historic HomeWorks 26 Higgins St. Portland, ME 04103 207 773-2306 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.HistoricHomeWorks.com
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