For months I have observed this large screw-like tool partially buried in the ground at my local marshland park and gradually rusting with the passage of time. Was it deliberately abandoned during a construction project? Was it accidentally left behind? Will it be used in the spring to bore more holes into the earth?
Is it a symbol of abandoned hopes and plans, of dreams that never came to fruition? I leave the interpretation to others.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
I have a thing for taking photos of rust so this photo appeals to me. I hope a reader can identify the object. It makes me think of a fence post for a wire fence but it has that thread running down it like a screw which undermines that interpretation.
I too think it might be used for digging holes for a fence, but I know very little about construction tools and vehicles. I was struck by the juxtaposition of this man-made object with a primarily natural setting.
It looks like an auger you’d use to dig post holes but what a strange place for it to be. Were they putting up fences in the area?
Hmmmm…..
A base for a gate from long ago. I don’t know what your marshland was before, but perhaps there used to be a gate across a road to keep people and vehicles from entering.
Sorry for two comments, Mike, but I did a little research on Huntley Meadows and found out the following:
“The land was bought by the federal government in 1941. From 1943 to 1953, the Bureau of Public Roads tested asphalt road surfaces. The Virginia National Guard’s Battery D, 125th Gun Battalion provided anti-aircraft protection for the nation’s capital from 1950 to 1959. And the Navy conducted highly classified radio communication research from 1958 to 1971, before declaring the land surplus around 1971.”
It makes sense from the above info, that his was probably something left over from that time. Who knows how far in the auger goes, but I’m sure it was just easier to leave it then to try and unscrew it!
I’m back again. Every few months WordPress deletes you from my Reader. Now catching up with your recent posts.
Lots here for the imagination to play with. Well? Leash attachment for a reeeeally big dog? Or simply the result of someone with too much time on his hands and the chance to prove to anyone who happened by that he found a way to convey to the world that everything seemed to him at the moment, to be…boring?
Interesting photo, interesting discussion