2002-11-15 - 9:16 a.m.
So we looked at the weather forecast for the weekend and decided that Saturday couldn't be "Let's Make Postholes for the fence" day. Something about the fact that it is supposed to be 40 degrees and sopping wet all day just didn't inspire us to great acts of physical prowess, ya know?
So we left work at 3:00 (funny...after giving Gina grief about rearranging her schedule and making up the time a couple of weeks ago, her boss just said "Okay, go for it" when we needed this request...and she won't be making up the time...this company is fu*ked)
Sorry...back to the subject at hand...
So stop 1 is the Home Depot, where armed with nothing more than a sketch of our fencing plans and a checkbook our valiant heros do purchase $130 worth of poles and quikset concrete.
Note to all prospective fence builders...There are two kinds of poles for chain link fences, "Terminal poles" go at the corners and are thicker and (slightly) longer. "Line poles" are thinner and go along the sides and are slightly shorter.
Anyhow, our sketch and the "Gorm-o-matic fence stuff needing calculator" determines that we need 6 terminal posts and 8 line posts for our 145 linear foot fence project. (As measured using the pacing and measuring a pace and then pacing some more method). Home Depot recommends buying one 50 lb bag of concrete for each post...which would be 14 bags, but they only had 10 bags that were in any kind of decent shape, so 10 it was.
The next stop is to rent the one person auger...with 4" and 6" blades, and wave goodbye to another $52. The guy renting us the auger says "You gotta be careful, because this thing has no reverse, so it can get stuck sometimes and you have to pull it out and it isn't easy...but with all the wet we've got that shouldn't be a problem...just be careful to watch for it..."
The smarter of you in the audience will be snickering already, seeing where this is going...foreshadowing...the mark of good weblog...
Oh, did I mention that we got home at 5:00...and dark sets in at 6? Didn't think so...anyhow, we got home at 5 and dark sets in at 6, so we're trying to do this relatively quick, as we have 14 posts to set before it gets too dark.
So the first terminal post hole goes remarkably smoothly, and we're thinking "Okay, this won't be but so bad".
Lining up the second terminal post wasn't as easy as we'd hoped, as it was right near a tree, but there was enough clearance, so it went pretty okay.
The third post was the first sign of problem. This was back by our treeline, and the ground was much mushier. The auger loved it...right up until the last inch or so, when it started to bind. Fortunately, a quick thinking Gorm pulled the auger up and out before it jammed, and all was okay.
Now for the dreaded fourth post. This was one of the ones that had us concerned, because it was right near where we guessed our septic tank lines were running, and if there's one thing you don't want to do it's puncture a septic line.
But, septic lines are supposed to be buried under three feet of soil, and we're only going 18 inches, and we're as close to the treeline as possible, and they wouldn't lay the pipe this close to the treeline, because roots could be a problem...so we figure we're okay.
The ground here is *very* mushy...it's always *very* mushy back there after a rain, and we've gotten like 3 inches in the past week, so it was rather mucky.
The auger goes in, and at about 16 inches (we need 18, remember), it jams in. HARD! The motor shuts itself off in self-preservation mode, and there we are with an auger, stuck in the ground.
Oh...and we hear water.
So...a 300 pound Gorm and his 300 pound wife Rhiannon start applying various brute force methods at getting the auger to come out. Pulling straight up doesn't work. Rocking back and forth and pulling doesn't work. Not much works.
Thankfully, my smart wife figures it out. She disconnects the torque bar from the auger and then spins the entire thing about 1/4 turn in the other direction, then we both pull and eventually it comes out...CAKED in an icky brown mud...and the hole gets 7" of standing water in it almost immediately.
The first thought is "Oh sh*t, we punctured a septic line"...but that is fairly quickly disposed of by realizing that if we'd punctured a septic line, it would stink to high heaven. And this doesn't smell like anything other than mud.
I grab a chunk of stuff off the auger bit, and it's soft, and brown, and squishy...like clay is. Wet clay...sopping wet clay.
This is my theory as to what we did...when they built the house, they buried the septic lines under three feet of backfill, mostly clay soil (the soil around our yard is largely clay), but they didn't compress it, they just piled it on and threw some grass on top of it.
Over the next three years, the clay absorbed moisture as it rained. It settled a little, but not much yet. So the ground is kinda like swiss cheese (but on a dirt and water scale). When we dug the hole, we created a sump where the water quickly channeled into (which is exactly what sumps do), and wet clay sticks to itself very, very well, which is what bound the auger.
(If there's a geologist in the house who can doublecheck that reasoning, please feel free to do so)
Anyhow...that took virtually all of our remaining energy, and it was about 7:00, and we were tired and hungry, but we pressed on. The fifth terminal hole was pretty easy. So we started to move on to line posts.
The way you determine where to put line posts is kinda interesting...you stretch string between two terminal posts (which have now set in their concrete bases, since it's been more than an hour since you set the first post), then you measure the distance exactly, consult a chart to see how many posts you need in that distance (they can't be more than 10 feet apart), and how far to space them.
Anyhow, our pacing measurements for the post 2 to 3 line (can't do posts 1 to 2 yet, because we haven't completely decided about the gate we're buying, which factors into that line) told us that the first line we were doing was 30 feet, which would require 2 posts, each 10 feet apart.
But the exact measurements showed it was actually 36 feet. This requires three posts, each 9 feet apart. SIGH!
This means wer're likely to be short posts.
So we dig the three holes and get everything set for them, and move on to the back line (between posts three and 4). Post 4 is the one that was mucked in.
Problem...post 4 had managed to sink 7 inches further into the ground during the time we were working on the other posts.
And there was no visible sign of the concrete we had poured....
I'm *hoping* that what happened was that since it was dark, I couldn't see far enough into the hole to see that the concrete was there, 7 inches down, and it had just sunk into the mire.
We reset the pole, and ran the string, and realized we were both exhausted.
So...that's where we are...8 holes dug out of what we originally thought would be 14 (but recalculation based on how much we were off on the first side says will be 18), and one of our terminal posts is questionable.
So now we just sit and wait for the rains to pass before we can continue. How exactly we will continue is as of yet uncertain. The auger costs $52/day, so we returned it this morning (well..."We" is a stretch...Gina returned it while I was showering and getting ready for the day this morning) We might rerent it next weekend and hope the ground is dry enough to avoid the problems. We might go the posthole digger route...we just don't know.
On the plus side, the Bruins were playing last night, and beat up on the Islanders (Yeah, I know...everyone beats up on the Islanders)...so now we're forced to follow tradition and tell the knock knock joke...
"Knock-Knock"
"Who's there?"
"Islanders Goalie"
"Islanders Goalie w..."
"BRUINS SCORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
So...with due apologies to fellow Bruins fan Blackbear ...What silly home improvement project have you done today?
�
Random�
