My ex-husband was a grave digger to help work his way through college. They dug by hand, this was in 1950's, and digging frozen ground by hand might be difficult. Now-a-days I see graves being dug with machinery....a far cry from the 1800's or so. sometimes we forget we are industrialized now. AS

--=======2234354E======= Content-Type: text/plain; x-avg-checked=avg-ok-4D246445; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Audrey, The backhoes that the cemeteries use would break their teeth on frozen ground. My son had a Bobcat; just sold it. The trick is to get down to the frost level. After that you can use a pick and shovel but before? I guess you could dig if your equipment was big and heavy enough but that's not what cemeteries use. There's a Jewish cemetery in Carrick off of Stewart St. that it truly unbelievable. The plots are the length of a casket plus a foot for the headstone. Then there's a walkway that, at best, is 2 feet wide. It may be 18". And then there's another headstone. It almost reminds me of when I was in the service and you were marching as a platoon, all in nice neat rows with just enough room between marchers as to prevent someone tripping. They must have the tiniest backhoe in existence. Something like a big Tonka! Unreal! Al At 04:22 PM 9/25/2004, you wrote: >My ex-husband was a grave digger to help work his way through college. They >dug by hand, this was in 1950's, and digging frozen ground by hand might be >difficult. Now-a-days I see graves being dug with machinery....a far cry >from the 1800's or so. sometimes we forget we are industrialized now. >AS --=======2234354E======= Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-avg=cert; x-avg-checked=avg-ok-4D246445 Content-Disposition: inline --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.769 / Virus Database: 516 - Release Date: 9/24/2004 --=======2234354E=======--