Dig posts. Eight of them. I would estimate a full day's work for this. You can purchase a post hole digger and dig them the way they have been dug for centuries. An easier approach would be to rent an auger from the local rental shop, which will still require, arguably, a respectable amount of physical effort. Or, you can take the urban gentleman's approach and decide that a full days worth of digging holes in the dirt is better left to others more well trained in this area of expertise and just hire this piece of the action out to local labor.
In my case, I happened to have some guys out on the property repairing a section of fence so it made sense to cut a deal and have them zip through the eight holes with their fancy tools and years of post-hole digging experience. They charged me $50 a hole and even though I need to keep my budget under tight control, I am sure this was money well spent. It took THEM a full day to dig the holes so I am guessing conservatively it would have taken me two days. The studio sits on land full of tree roots and rocks: between the pine tree that was cut down, the crabapple that sits to its right and the massive willow that towers over it from the left, the ground below was a veritable labyrinth of twisted tree-root pathways and boulder obstacles.
Each of the eight posts had to be 18" in diameter and 4' deep. When you actually measure out the amount of earth that fills the volume of a 18" x 4' cylander, you end up struck by just how much you underestimated the task at hand and you may even begin to question the decision to build a structure significant enough to warrant the displacement of so much dirt in preparation for its footings. Of course when you do get to that moment of questioning you are doing so from the top of a pile of dirt so high you can glance over the roof of your actual house, which reminds you the time for such questioning has long since passed. And you realize also that your time is better focused on other things, after all you know you'll have this fleeting thought of "what have I gotten myself into?" Or "i've really gotten myself into it this time!" more than once during the project for sure, and the urban gentleman confident in his vision never surrenders to doubt in such moments but rather trudges on ahead to the next task with confidence.
Speaking of next tasks, before moving on to the next big task of the project, there was one final small detail to take care of after getting rid of all the dirt itself. About three and a half feet down into one of the the middle posts, there sat a rock just big enough that it escaped the grip of all of the guys who worked on the hole. It was just deep enough that you could touch the top of it but you couldn't rech your hands around the whole thing well enough to get a grip on it. The fence guys I had hired finally threw in the towel in frustration. So I resolved to figure out a solution to removing the boulder myself.
I sat at the base of the hole and tried for some time to reach it - i was so frustratingly close to being able to get enough of a grip on it to pull it upward. Just when I thought I might have it finally it would slip out of my fingertips. In moments like this i always try to imagine what would be the perfect tool to accomplish the task in front of me. I recalled this silly "As seen on TV" contraption my grandmother has which is a clamp at the end of a long metal arm which allows the elderly to pick things up from the floor without bending over. "That's exactly what would solve this problem," I thought. "I just need a metal clamp-arm long enough to reach down three and a half feet and big enough to grab an eight pound boulder." Stupid thought. Then, as I was lying down, flush against the ground with one arm into the hole as deep as my chest would allow, it suddenly struck me that if I just dug down around the hole a few more inches I would be able to rech it! Duh, I thought, how simple.
My daughter, Sophia, who is eight, was nearby so I summoned her over with a shovel. She is a little pipsqueak full of piss and vinegar and always at the ready to help. And then, in a split second as she ran toward me with the shovel, It dawned on me. the perfect solution to the conundrum in front of me: I would use Sophia as a human clamp-arm.
That's her - I'm holding her by her feet and lowering her down to get the rock!
Amazing!
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