My mind is strange. If sifts through stuff w/o my being aware, then delivers results like the following rant.

--Rant About Movie & TV Characters Digging Holes--

1st: My credentials: I've worked as a paid hole digger in the past, and I've dug many holes in all sorts of weather in New England & in the Carolinas. I have about 55 years of off-and-on digging experience.

1/

Let me tell you: showrunners & moviemakers have been lying to you about how easy it is to dig holes, particularly in the winter. But I'll start my rant by describing what it's like to dig a hole in Massachusetts & in South Carolina when it's not the winter.

2/

Mass. Holes:

You grab a spade. If you're at all experienced, you likely have a 6' pry bar & a pick as well.

You stand & look down at the land you're about to do battle with. If you are smart you have good work gloves & sturdy boots on, & lots of icewater to drink.

3/

You start digging, & the first few inches of loam give way fairly easily. You feel that you're a match for this challenge.

On the fifth or 8th shovelful you hit roots. You use the spade as a cutting tool, smashing down with your boot sole to sever the roots.

4/

First roots out of the way, you resolve to shovel mightily to catch up with where you expected to be by now.

A few more shovels full of soil & you hit a slab of granite.

5/

Your whole aim, of digging a uniform hole for your needs (perhaps planting a nice shrub), is suddenly derailed.

You uncover more & more of the granite. This chunk might be only a foot across, but you have to widen the hole to get it out.

6/

Finally you extricate the slab & stop for a rest. Your partner strolls out to see if the shrub is in the ground.

You try to hide your exasperation.

The hole is only 18" deep.

7/

The work continues, but now you're below the loam level and into the 'rocky clay' level. You can't plunge the spade in. You have to loosen the hardpack with the pick, then scoop the loose soil out.

8/

There will likely be additional granite slabs & more roots.

Finally, you're done. You have a misshapen, sprawling hole, nothing like what you imagined needing for the shrub.

9/

You think about the perfectly shaped holes (graves or whatever) that actors in movies dig, & you think dark thoughts about how popular culture lies to you.

10/

Digging Carolina:

You attempt to plunge the spade into the soil.

There is no soil. The gravel/clay mix you encountered 18" down in Massachusetts here begins 1/4" under the grass.

You sigh and reach for the pick.

11/

The entirety of this hole-digging experience is a hardback gravel & red clay matrix with an occasional forlorn root to relieve the tedium. It is probably brutally hot. You drink all of your icewater & a shocked at how much you're sweating.

12/

Massholes in the Winter:

hah ah ha ha ha hah hah ah ha ha ha hah hah ah ha ha ha hah hah ah ha ha ha hah hah ah ha ha ha hah.

Sorry. This isn't happening.

13/

Seriously. I have hit the bare ground with a pick in January & it rang like a bell. You'd have as much luck digging through a concrete sidewalk as using hand tools to dig a hole in midwinter in New England.

14/

I saw a cop drama where 2 women dragged a corpse into the snowy woods in the Yukon & dug a grave & buried it.

No.

15/

Go to an old (pre-industrial) graveyard in the northeast. You'll likely see some sort of chamber. These were used to hold bodies until the thaw. All the villagers who died after the hard frost were stored there until the spring.

16/

Those old timers were tough. They were hard workers. If they could have dug graves in the winter, they would have.

You aren't doing better.

17/End