TheBanyanTree: Wherein peter falls down a hole

[Teague, Julie Anna]

Holy cow!  That would've been quite the mystery, had you simply disappeared into a ten foot hole, never to be heard from again. Mystery and tragedy averted, thank goodness. I'm assuming you've ensured that no small children or animals wander into it! 



-----Original Message-----
From: TheBanyanTree <thebanyantree-bounces at lists.remsset.com> On Behalf Of peter macinnis
Sent: Wednesday, January 9, 2019 11:38 PM
To: thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com
Subject: TheBanyanTree: Wherein peter falls down a hole

I have been gardening this past week, subduing a wild jungle of trees and weeds, and today's task was to trim the dead fronds on a  Canary Island palm in the garden. I grew up in a street lined with these, and I know that they have vicious spines, but I also know how to deal with them. I cut the fronds with loppers, and then chopped off the end 60 cm or 2 feet so all the spines are now in a bin. Later, I will cut off the leaves from the stalks and compost them

For some time, there has been a deep depression in the garden near the palm, about a metre, three feet deep, and I have recently been filling it with all the fallen leaves, converting it into a compost pit.  Today, as I was trimming the dead fronds on that palm, I stepped onto/into the depression a couple of times, and the third time I did, the bottom of the hole gave way, and my leg plunged in.  Clearly, the leaves had been plugging the hole in an unsupported way.

It was a bit like stepping into really deep snow as I did once in Norway, so I knew what to do: bend the knee and drop back to land on the thigh, so I only go knee-deep, and then scramble out. When I got out and started poking palm fronds in there, some of them went down to a depth of 3 metres, ten feet.

It could have been nasty, but it wasn't. Just curious, because the geology here doesn't support sink holes.

Enquiries have been set in train, but I have ruled out white rabbits.

peter