Mystery object in the ground

[brucix]

Heya. This mysterious object was half-buried in my lawn, near a fruit tree. I know it wants to destroy my mower blades. The pipe/tube attached goes down into the ground and I can't pull it out by hand. Any idea what it is/was? Safe to dig further and remove?

 

[jinman]

At some point you had a power pole near that location (maybe before you owned the property). That is where the guywire attaches to the buried "dead man" anchor. The base of that bar that the cable attaches to may be down as far as 4' or more and it will have a flange on the end to keep it from coming out. You will either have to dig a very big hole or dig down far enough to cut the bar below a level where you might hit it.

 

[brucix]

I see; at first I thought it might be an old mole/gopher trap. But when I started digging around it, it looked more like old power/other infrastructure, so I stopped. I'll see about cutting the bar a bit below ground. Thanks!

 

[rekees4300]

Looks like some sort of anchor. Perhaps it was used to brace the fruit tree? Anyway most earth anchors are augers screwed into the ground so maybe it would come out if you could turn it counter-clockwise?

 

[nybirdman]

Aren't they called "duck bill"anchors?you won't pull it out.The drawing is correct.Just cut off.

 

[grsthegreat]

those anchors are real long, and designed NOT TO PULL OUT. Just cut it off below ground level.

good luck

 

[Thomas]

If you can't cut it off dig down than place flat rock on top of cable than cover.

 

[wdchyd]

Brucix,

Maybe you'll be lucky enough to find other treasures at that site.....

Last weekend I found these two gems after seeing a setup like you found sticking up out of the ground about a mile deep in the woods along an old abandoned RR track .....

 

[rekees4300]

Last weekend I found these two gems

Those glass isolators may actually have antique value. List them on Ebay.

 

[wdchyd]

Not really worth much.....probably the story of the find is worth more.....:laughing:

 

[coobie]

Heya. This mysterious object was half-buried in my lawn, near a fruit tree. I know it wants to destroy my mower blades. The pipe/tube attached goes down into the ground and I can't pull it out by hand. Any idea what it is/was? Safe to dig further and remove?

I am a electric lineman and that might be a 6ft. ground rod or 6ft anchor rod.coobie

 

[milkman636]

Those glass isolators may actually have antique value. List them on Ebay.

I dug one of those Hemingway insulators up with my FEL a couple of years ago and thought the same thing. Turns out that there were more than 50 of them on Ebay for $5-$10. I kept mine for the conversation value it offers. Its fun to ask kids to guess what it is.

 

[Mace Canute]

It's an anchor rod used by utilities, usually power or telephone, when they deadend overhead lines. What's on the bottom might be one of a few things, they used several different styles of anchors over the years, but I would suspect it's something like this. Might be just a "slug"...a chunk of treated pole on it's side with the anchor rod through the middle. Some styles of plate anchors could be pulled out if you pulled in the opposite direction of what they were designed to anchor...we used to use our digger truck to pull them. One thing that we used to do to get them below a point where they caused problems was to use a sledge hammer to drive the rod farther into the ground. It's just a nut on the bottom end of the rod so that usually can be hammered down, depending on what's in line with the anchor rod.

 

[weldingisfun]

Brucix,

Maybe you'll be lucky enough to find other treasures at that site.....

Last weekend I found these two gems after seeing a setup like you found sticking up out of the ground about a mile deep in the woods along an old abandoned RR track .....

We found one of those on our place a few years back. It is clear glass and has the date December 1944 on it. It is now a conversation piece sitting on top of a gate post.

 

[TracTrac]

I've got around 60 glass insulators I picked up in 1991. Value was $2.00 back then. There are some out there that are worth $100s. Good Luck finding those.
Brucix, if you do attempt to pull up the anchor please shoot a video. Thanks.

 

[slowzuki]

Yeah we have boxes of the old insulators and the galvanize hardware they used to screw onto. Worthless around here.

 

[schmism]

most anchors like that are screw in so put a large bar in the eyelit and turn counterclockwise