Folow-up2 on replacing broken wooden fence post.

Well, AFTER I removed the stub of the old round wood fence post, I
manage to make about 5 mistakes, even though I hadn't made a single
mistake up until then.

The Good: I waited 4 days from last Friday to today, Tuesday, for the
water to drain out of the hole, and today I used a sledge hammer to
pound the post into the now empty bottom of the hole.

The Bad: I don't know how far to expect to pound it. I eyeballed the
post after I took it out, and eyeballed the hole, and said to myself
there are one or two inches of water in it, but who really knows.
Especially when looking at at the hole from the top of it. To eyeball a
tube, you want to see it from the side, not the end.

Mistake 1, I should have taken a steel tape measure and measured from
the top of the hole to the water line, then measured the part of the
post which was underground when I started pulling it out, then
subtracted and figured out how deep the water was.

Mistake 2, Better yet, I should have stuck a dry stick or dry yardstick
into the hole and measured how much of it got wet. Simpler and better.

Mistake 3. I should have checked if there were gravel in the bottom of
the hole, because even if the water level goes down, I'm not going to be
able to pound the post into the gravel. Better yet, I should have put
gravel in the hole because I've heard that's a good idea (see replies to
other post to find out if it really is.)

Mistake 4. I should have done the pounding on the post BEFORE I filled
the rest of the hole with dirt. At least in theory. In reality, I
don't think the extra dirt is really making it harder for the post to go
down. OTOH, something is, because surely I'm not forcing water out of
the hole now, surely it's drained out already, despite the clay and that
it didn't drain at all in 2 hours. I've given it 4 days!! And yet the
post only moves a little bit with every hit of thI had to pound about 30
times with the sledge to get it to move this far.

Mistake 5. I did note before I started pounding where the post was. I
used a couple nails still sticking through the fence section that was
leaning against the post, and noted where it was in relatiion to some
white flecks on the post. But I should have done a better job,
written down the relationship I noted, or something. Because I pounded
the post in several short sessions, and I kept being uncertain that I
was using the right marks. But I'm pretty certain and I'm up to 1.25
or 1.5 inches already. I'll wait a couple more days and pound some
more.

Because the post is still 7' long, and about 2 feet are underground it
came up to my nose, so using the sledge was different from normal.