How to Dig a Trench

21 Jul How to Dig a Trench

For instructions on how to dig a trench, please refer to the googles- it’s very possible some number of people have dedicated serious effort to explain the mechanics and process of trench digging in both imagery and words.  This blog entry will address the metaphysical aspect of intentionally creating a temporary sub-surface path where the adverb how is defined in terms of in what state or condition a trench is to be dug.

Done guffawing yet?  It’s ok, this anecdote will either become a cute story Porter can relay to his great grand kids about his summer spent working with his dad, or it will be yet another citation of gross professional misconduct at my decommissioning tribunal when the robot overlords complete the impending takeover.  It’s possible, either way.

A landscaper is no stranger to moving portions of our earth, often by measures of one shovelful at a time.  We dig.  We dig like we’re on a mission because we almost always are.  One doesn’t think too hard about how many shovelfuls it will take to transfer the truckload of gravel into the wheel barrows, you’re better off just getting at it.  Same with leveling a yard: scoop, scoop, scoop and soon it’s done.  But with a trench, there’s some planning needed.  That’s where the job becomes work.

A recent trench needed to be routed across a field of ivy that held treasures within it’s  verdant carpet, including a tree stump and the admonition of a recently re-plumbed water main.    Boom.  As surely as a mattox will turn rocky soil the consistency of macadam into loose, scoopable pellets that same simple tool will surely find, perforate and transform into a geyser that aforementioned watermain.  Porter got a little wet.

Fortunately the repair was simple, the homeowner not too freaked out, and the trench nearly halfway done- in distance.  How much longer the digging will actually last and when the trench will be finished is yet to be determined.  It’s best to have another more important project to occupy the workforce when a trench is needing to get dug.  How to dig a trench is to have it be a filler project, don’t make it the central task.