Digging in the backyard

It was really nice today and I didn't have much else to do, so I decided to do a little digging in the backyard. The target of my shovel - one of the cemented-in horseshoe poles. We know that they're horseshoe poles and not, for example, fenceposts because we found a horseshoe around one of them. First of all - why would you cement in horseshoe poles in your backyard? And the two poles were at opposite ends of a slope - one uphill and one downhill. Does that make for good horseshoes? I guess it didn't work very well, because they (whoever "they" are) tried to get rid of one of the poles. By cutting it off at ground level. You can see it in the left red circle in the picture. (click on the picture to open a larger version)



I figured that when our driveway contractor comes back with a tractor, we can ask him to knock down the intact pole. So I figured I'd dig this one up. With a little help from our neighbor Daniel (used an ax/sledgehammer to cut up a root in the way, dug a little, and lifted the actual super-heavy cement thing out of the ground - very helpful), I dug it out! It gave me a small sense of accomplishment amidst the chaos of the house.

Here's the hole that held the pole:

Here's the clump of cement that we dug out and Daniel lifted out.
As I was digging this out, though, I found another cemented in post! Right next to it! It was completely underground between the original post and the cut-off root (right red circle in above picture). So I started to dig that one out, but then got tired. I'll see what the tractor can do next week.

Here is the second cement clump. Daniel also chopped out that plant (right red circle in pic).


I honestly don't know what people were thinking who owned this house before us.