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
[log in to unmask]
www.HistoricHomeWorks.com

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