Filling the Moat

 Yesterday, we rented a two-man post hole auger and started drilling the holes along side of the house. After one hole, I realized my back was not up to the task, so we conned asked Mr K., our next door neighbour, if he would help. The Geek and Mr K were drilling the sixth hole, when the auger bit got stuck and kept pulling itself deeper.

After trying to help loosen it, Mr K. was rememind had an engagement yesterday afternoon so he wisely made his escape left.
The Geek used a pipe wrench to turn the shaft of the bit and managed to move it out of the ground a couple of inches.

I ran back to Home Depot to get another extension to give us a bit more leverage. The young lad I spoke to had never heard of anyone getting the bit stuck-he must be new.
When I got back, The Geek had drilled a hole into a piece of telepost she had found in the basement and was using the pipewrench and an extender on that.
She then drilled a second hole through which we put one of her long clamps.
(I apologize for the sideways pictures. My computer's picture viewer refused to turn them. An 'unknown error' occurred. Eesh!)

 After pushing and shoving we managed to turn the bit high enough out of the ground to lift it clear. It was clogged with clay, which may explain why it kept pulling itself deeper.

 We managed to bend her clamp in the process.

 The earth on the side of the house, despite all the rain we've had, was very dry and kept falling into the holes. Because we couldnt' think of another way to remove the dirt, The Geek vacuumed it out. (I suspect we provide endless entertainment to the neighbours.)

 By pulling out all the loose dirt, she managed to drop the pipes another foot into the holes.

 At the end of the day we had managed to move the large gravel to the back of the house so we don't have that huge step down anymore.

 I suspect we would have accomplished more yesterday but that stuck bit took a lot of time and energy, even tho' we managed to get the auger back to Home Depot with a minute to spare of our four hour rental.

Let's hope we finish today. The shingles come tomorrow and the roofers on Tuesday. We don't need any holes into which they might fall.