The Mailbox Ordeal

Alan decided that our old lopsided mailbox had to go, so he built this beautiful mailbox post. It had a decorative top that matched the deck and this cool slanted front. So we decided to put it in a couple of days ago.

Day One:
The old post was permanently attached to a three foot steel spike, which was embedded in rock and hardpan clay. Even though Alan dug down several feet with the posthole digger, the post would not come out. It took hours of digging and prying with a crowbar(I'm not kidding)to get it dislodged. The last stage was slicing off clay with a trowel by hand.

Day Two:
The new post was bigger than the old one, so we couldn't use the old hole. We (Alan) had to dig a new hole back about a foot and a half from the old one. That went fine until we hit concrete and broke through to an open space. Unbeknownst to us, there was a concrete culvert there. So, the post not only couldn't go there, we had to patch the hole we had made in the concrete culvert.

Now, we had to put the new post back where the old post had been, but the new fancy post was too big. It hung over into the street. The only thing to do was amputation. Out came the circular saw, and all the decorative things Alan had done got sawed off. No pretty top; no cute front.

We now have a conventional looking post that isn't going to be changed in our lifetime. Alan poured the entire hole full of concrete.