L D's Backhoe Services

About L D's Backhoe Services

Out along the section-line roads east of Russell, the old post-rock fence posts stand every few yards exactly as the first settlers cut them, and L D's Backhoe Services has moved plenty of that same limestone-heavy dirt over the seasons running lines and digging footings. In winter, the same equipment turns to plowing those long rural drives, where a snowdrift can bury a gate or a mailbox post overnight and leave a farmstead cut off until someone gets a blade to it. Frozen dirt out here doesn't give an inch, so clearing a driveway right after a storm — before the freeze locks the snow down hard — makes all the difference by the next morning. There's satisfaction in watching a plowed lane run straight and clean between two rows of post-rock posts, out toward a farmhouse that was cut off just hours before. Russell County's back roads stay passable through the worst of winter because someone's willing to run a blade down them before dawn.