Root Cellar 1

The other day I was returning home late afternoon/early evening and all along my road were parked several working pickups. You know: the 4 door big white ones full of tools and gear in the back. A track hoe was parked in the field, there were a bunch of dudes standing around the boss’s truck, and I could tell they were wrapping up a long cold day.

I thought to myself, “I ought to ask them if they could do a small job for me for some beer or something…” But then I thought that their day was over, they were tired, and since the track hoe was parked – they were likely coming back in the morning. There is a gas pipeline underground near High Prairie Acres and I assumed they were working on it. I was correct.

As I exited my vehicle, my wife came out of the barn looking and acting strange. Her body language was just “weird” and she was motioning me to “come here” in a rapid manner. She obviously didn’t want to speak.

I immediately went to Code Orange and started scanning the area for trouble. I’m looking at her for signs of physical distress, I’m scoping out the guys by the trucks over there; I’m looking for other people possibly hiding in the area…(It was one of those days and I just defaulted to a more “tactical state”.)

She led me to our pasture off the drive and pointed at track hoe tracks going across our field and said in an excited whisper, “We need to call the Sherriff – look, they drove across our property”. She was still acting very strangely and I was thinking very fast.

I don’t care if they drove across our field – it doesn’t look like they did any damage…Sure, they don’t have an easement or permission but still, we are not like that…

I said, “So what?”

My wife said, “You should see what they did over here!”

So, looking back at the guys saddling up to leave for the day and thinking they were “getting away” I said, “Well call 911 NOW”. I figured I’d figure out what was going on later but we better get these guys who upset my wife fast or they are gonna get away…

We were still walking and following the tracks and my wife said, “they drove through our fences, and they drove into the bottoms and, THEY DUG YOU A ROOT CELLAR!” At this point she was giggling and jumping for joy.



We have been planning a root cellar down there for a long time. We want a place to store produce. Yeah, we actually want to use it as a root cellar. We had tried putting teenagers to work with shovels and they did dig a pretty good hole one afternoon but we figured out we would need more mechanical advantage.

I talked to folks about borrowing or renting a back hoe or a bobcat or something but we just never got around to it.

Until the crew showed up that afternoon.
When they all pulled up on the land next to ours my wife went over to the first truck and asked if they were the Boss. They said, “Nope, we’re the surveyors – the boss is in that truck.”

She went over there and said, “Are you the Boss?”

The guy said, “Yep – I’m the one you complain to.”

My wife said she had no complaints but heard that sometimes they would do a good deed if it was a small job and close by and described what she wanted. They said, “Sure” and drove that huge beast down into my bottoms and dug the hole. Took about 15 minutes and my wife says there is a Bobcat-sized rock in the dirt pile.

Anyway – a really tough part of the root cellar build is now done thanks to some really cool guys and a pro-active wife.

I’ll keep y’all informed of the progess.

And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope; yea, thou shalt dig about thee, and thou shalt take thy rest in safety. – Job 11:18
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If they really interest me, I may even post them.
You can reach me at Joe

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