Work Wednesday « Robin Writes

Yay! Woohoo! The posts are in the ground! All 125 of them. Or so . . .

We finished those up on Tuesday and concreted the six-inchers. Next step: screwing in about 350 boards. No idea, at this time, how long this is going to take, but I’ll guesstimate about three days. We’ll see if I’m right . . .

After that, we’ll lop off the extra at the tops of the posts, and put in the gates. Actually, we have to build one gate. Had a little trouble with Mabel.

Mabel being one of our tape measures.

Jane is the other one. Well, her full name is “Jane, You Slut.” We can’t ever find her . . . not going to tell you Mabel’s full name. We seldom need to use it.

Now, lest anyone think that setting posts in an easy thing—this means you, Dr. Ralko—I can assure you that it is not:

Let’s assume you already measured your pasture or yard or whatever and lined it out with string or twine, so you know where you’re going with this fence. First, you drill down with an auger—any variety; we have a two-man, but for this we’re using the one on the tractor. Thank God.

“They” say you should go down two feet. And “they” are correct. Unless you live in the Ozarks, in which case it requires using that tractor auger 2-3 times, slamming the hole with an iron rock-breaker stick—there may be a technical name for this, but I don’t know what it is—many, many, many times, using a hand post-hole digger and a shovel, and probably adding water at some point.

This can take as little as five minutes—in which case there is much joy and celebration—or as long as 30 minutes with calls of, “Looks good enough to me!”

Sometimes, there is a pause when one considers if one can obtain dynamite or C4 on Amazon Prime . . .

One cannot. One cries a little.

Next, assuming the hole is dug, you have to pick up a 40-pound, 8-foot post and lower it into the hole. You make sure it’s level and shove back most of the dirt you just removed from said hole. You tamp it down and add more dirt and make sure it’s all tight.

Then you measure to the next post. We use an 8-foot 2×4, because our distance between posts is, well, eight feet. Rinse and repeat, 125 times. Or so.

This is a full week: while the aforementioned concrete cures, we’ll be tilling the manure into the garden—got some from the neighbor last week—and (gulp) putting up the greenhouse. An all-day project if there ever was one.

And I might be too optimistic about that . . .

So you may or may not get pics of that greenhouse next week.

It’s been a busy week here on the farm. We’re finally (FINALLY!) getting rid of the remains of the old house that we had taken down a year and a half ago. Ahem. Long story. But we’ve spent the past few days burning what’s burnable (along with some extra brush we’d accumulated) and throwing the rest in the dumpster or burying it.

Here are a couple before pictures and an almost-after:

Also, over the last few days, we’ve picked up some manure from the neighbors and are working that into the garden, both existing and the part that we’ll plant in the spring. The greenhouse is waiting in the barn to be put together as soon as we finish leveling the site.

The pasture fence now has three sides of posts—the fourth side is waiting until 1) we get more posts, and 2) we finish the burn site, since that’s right next to it. Probably in the next few days we’ll order the extra posts and the lumber for the rails, and then pick up a few gates. I’m hoping to be finished in a couple weeks!

Aside from that, I’m still fighting the Battle of the Leaves, at least on the decks, and I need to mulch the ones in the yard areas. Still hanging laundry outside, but the dryer is hooked up now in anticipation of cold/rainy weather.

While we know the wood furnace draws, we haven’t used it yet. Just not cold enough, especially since I finally found the heated mattress pad . . . and it looks like the temps will hit 80 for a few days this weekend!