Source a location. Ask yourself, why are you digging my grave? Have you recently murdered me or have I died of natural causes? If murder, you must source both a grave site and a hiding place.
Ascertain the time of year. If the ground is wet, you must find higher ground or you will end up digging not a grave but a small pond as you will surely run into ground water. If the ground is frozen your job will be much more difficult. Best time to dig my grave: summer.
Determine if you will be putting me in a box or will I be wrapped in a blanket or tarp of some sort? Will I have any covering? I am five and a half feet tall, so if using a box you will need to acomodate my height, unless you bury me in a crumpled fashion, then consider my width. A tarp will be more bulky than you might expect. These considerations will determine the size of the hole. Caution: a smaller hole may be surprisingly harder to dig as it can get close in there.
Determine my grave goods. Throwing in something after me such as a volume of unpublished poetry or favorite pet will be important if somebody digs me up later.
Assemble your tools. Will you be digging my grave with a machine such as a backhoe or excavator? Or by hand? If using machinery, an excavator is larger and heavier than a backhoe, and might be a good fit if you have chosen a particularly rocky place. A backhoe is smaller, and as such is far more suited to the job, though is inelegant. One might prefer the intimacy of digging by hand. One might also prefer the benefit of secrecy if one’s toolset makes as little noise as possible.
If digging by hand, you will need a good shovel or spade, preferably a sharp edged one, a pick, pruning shears or loppers, a chainsaw if you encounter large roots, and a tape measure or yardstick. You will need this last item to determine the depth of my grave. Grave depth laws vary according to municipality, and many suggest at least eighteen inches to two feet minimum depth, so you can forget anything you’ve heard about six feet under! No need to go that far. You must bury me at least twelve inches deep as an absolute minimum or animals and some sensitive humans will smell me decomposing. The former will dig me up and eat me and the latter will complain.
While digging the hole, you might wish to keep the soil layers separate so as not to stress their varying micro ecosystems when you cover me up. This is dependent upon how important it might be for plants to re-establish over my body. If you are hiding my body, this can be very important. Tip: if hiding me, throw in a particularly invasive plant as bonus cover, such as a good thorny blackberry for an irritating deterrent to the curious. Caution: you may attract fruit pickers. Otherwise English ivy, kudzu, and Japanese knotweed fill in quite rapidly, or try giant hogweed if your preferences run toward the flamboyant. Plant choices depend upon your location so do choose something locally invasive.
You may wish to leave my grave open for a time before you put me in it. Example: if you are murdering me but have yet to do the job, consider digging my grave first as you may be pressed for time later. If leaving my grave empty, take care to cover it with sturdy boards, otherwise any number of animals might fall in and pose additional challenges. You might have to remove an unfriendly skunk or particularly difficult raccoon, or even worse a larger animal. Though any creature trapped in my grave will wish to be removed, if its size and degree of friendliness prove an obstacle, you may simply choose to leave it in there as an amusing grave companion. I might like that.
