Ancient Egyptian Stone Moving

Now that we have removed the wheelchair ramp from around the deck, I have several footings in the yard that I want to dig up and remove. I started with the most obvious and dangerous one. It had a bent up post mounting that was easy to trip on.

So, one day some time back, I started digging away the dirt that surrounded this big block of cement. I ended up digging about two feet down around this thing before it even started to wiggle loose.
Once I had it uncovered and moving, I couldn't figure out how to get it out of the hole. It is one large Mofo piece of cement. I have no idea how much it weighs but I'll guess it's more than I'm able to lift by about 273 pounds. As such, it has sat out there in its hole for a couple of months.

I finally got tired of it sitting there and went to work on the project today. I decided to employ a complicated method of pulley and fulcrum use...but without the pulleys.

So I took this beat up old piece of 2x4 and used it as a leaver. I lifted one side of the cement block and tossed a block of wood under it. Then I lifted the other side and threw a block under there.
By going back and forth with the leaver and adding more and more blocks of wood under it, I was slowly lifting it up out of the hole until I was able to just roll it away from the hole.

I was pretty pleased with me for figuring out how to return to the ancient ways and move my Block O'SeeMent. I think I would have been a good Egyptian Slave. Perhaps I was in another life.