Steps in Dirt, a Dummies Method

steps dug into slope

The nice people who now run Leaf Group (formerly Demand Media Studios, parent company of eHow.com) have been paying a small cadre of freelancers to "freshen" bits and pieces of their content. Their biggest problems is apparent lack of vetting of those freelancers, for several of them have proven woefully inept in their rewrites. Most of the time, it's been because the original was written by someone unfamiliar with the topic and the rewrite specialist merely reworded what was already there. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. That's pretty much the problem with "How to Cut Steps Into a Dirt Slope," a rewrite of a David Robinson post at Hunker.com by Danielle Smyth.

Smyth, whose normal wheelhouse appears to be telling people how to write travel blogs, doesn't seem to know much about the task. For one thing, Danielle got hung up on the image of an interior staircase, explaining to her readers that,

"If, for instance, your slope is 77.5 inches tall and you plan to build steps of 7 ¾ inches, you will need 10 steps... In the United States, a standard stair is 11 inches wide... If you'll be abiding by this standard, you'll have to cut at least 11 inches horizontally at each step point in your slope."

OK, Danielle, a 7.75-inch rise for every eleven inches of run requires a hill slope of about 35 degrees; mighty steep, FWIW.
Smyth started out with serious problems in determining the layout, telling her readers to,

"...calculate the total height of the slope. Use a tape measure to determine the distance from the bottom of the hill to the top of the hill. Be sure the tape measure is laying flat on the ground when you take your measurements."

Uhhh, Danielle? That's not the "total height of the slope," it's the length of the slope. Nowhere do you discuss the vertical component of the slope. Perhaps you should have researched this instead of just using Robinson's words...

When it comes time to dig out the steps, Smyth is no less confused than she was in the planning process. Check out this "instruction":

"When you dig, shovel into the earth horizontally at the base of your slope so that you form a flat surface. You may first need to remove grass, weeds or loose topsoil."

Excuse us, but isn't removing "loose topsoil" included in the definition of digging?

Smyth's notion of digging such steps, which are typically broad, shallow steps with boards or logs as risers and a gravel or mulch "tread," is to "insert posts or boards at the edges of your stairway's outline." Apparently, the travels our Dumbass of the Day blogs about don't include many hikes...

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