Honey - Don't let the dogs out, there's a big hole here!
This was my honey's greeting this morning around 10:00. We had both noticed that there was a "dent" developing, but it didn't occur to me that an underground cave-in was happening. This morning, Dick noticed a couple of small holes, but no dirt around them like it would be if it were a badger or gopher hole. He tapped around the holes with a shovel, and the dirt just collapsed. I wandered out (sans dogs) and he made me wear a rope around my middle before getting too close to the hole. I laid down to look in - I figured if it works on ice it should work on dirt. I reached in with a long-handled shovel, and could barely touch the bottom. It was about 6 feet deep! I could see a big cement pipe, like a drainage pipe, going horizontally.
As it turned out, there used to be a cistern there, and apparently it was just abandoned. No cap and it didn't seem to be filled in. After we enlarged the top of the hole so that the sides were mostly vertical, we started filling. Luckily Dick had lots of broken concrete from a month or two ago, and he put several wheel barrow loads in. I started filling in with some dirt from a pile we had, and 5 hours later - it's pretty much filled in.
Ok, it wasn't this big, but it was the only clear image I could find.
