Forgot that too…
I dragged myself out of bed this morning feeling like a lumber truck had run over me, causing its load of logs to fall off which then in turn rolled and bounced over my body. I am sore. Muscles I did not know that I have (never was good in biology) are screaming at me.
It is all because I had conceived of another of my “great” ideas. I have had beautiful fence posts sitting in a nearly forgotten pile, waiting to be put in as real corner posts for all of the back pastures. My friend Jennifer and I decided that the time had come to put them into the ground.
My first job was to run to town to get diesel for my beloved tractor. Check
Next, I had to take the platform off of the back of the tractor. (I use this to haul hay, water and grain to the horses). Check.
Then, tools and supplies needed to be gathered. I had to locate and arrange all of the tools that I thought we might need… challenging, Dad and Kevin tend to use tools and never put them back where they belong. I loaded shovels, post hole digger, bags of concrete, four posts and my water bottle onto the riding lawn mower’s wagon (made from materials reclaimed from the old barn before it was torn down).
Jennifer arrived and we wrestled for half of an hour trying to mount the huge auger onto the back of the tractor. Since we are strong and belligerent women, we knew that this had to be possible, though at times it surely did not feel that way. Eventually we won out over gravity, got the heavy beast on, and set off for the field.
We figured out how to engage the PTO shaft and soon the auger was spinning. The tractor’s hydraulics are a bit jumpy, so learning to raise and lower the attachment somewhat smoothly was a bit of a challenge. We were in business! I carefully lowered the auger into place… and nothing. It seems that the pin that connects the drive mechanism to the auger had sheared off. I didn’t even know that the thing had pins.
Back up to the pole shed we went in search of anything that we could use. Since my father is a collector of odd parts, we found a huge bin containing bolts, nuts and washers. Taking handfuls of parts in varying sizes, we headed back down to the field.
20 minutes later, a new pin was installed and we tried again. Post hole one was great! The auger smoothly removed dirt at a blistering pace, the hydraulics were cooperative and we were in business! After cleaning out the hole by hand with a post hole digger, I poured half of a bag of concrete in… this is when I realized that I had forgotten to bring water down to the back of the field.
Back up to the pole shed to get several buckets, fill them, then back down to the field I went.
I poured water in the hole, Jennifer dropped a post in, I poured the rest of the concrete in and we refilled the hole with dirt. Success!!! We had our first corner post in place!
The next hole proved more difficult. We sheared at least 6 pins trying to achieve anything greater that the one foot depth that we wound ourselves at. Our soil contains precious few rocks (most are fist sized or smaller), so I had a hard time believing that we had hit anything underground. Finally, we gave up and moved on to the next hole. The same thing happened at a depth of just over two feet. Jennifer and I were becoming proficient at replacing pins in the auger.
We soon discovered that the problem might be the speed with which we were trying to dig. I slowed the RPM’s by about half, and we tried again. Before we knew it, we had a hole! In went concrete, water and another post! Holes 3 and 4 were quickly completed as were 5 and 6. In a mere 4 hours, we had put 6 fence posts into place!
I was tired, hungry and ready to quit. Perky, energetic Jennifer was not, so we headed to the front of the pastures. Here I have to say that when we put in the fiberglass line posts (those that run the length of the pastures) we used a surveyor’s transit to create straight lines. When we put the loafing sheds in, we used a transit from every conceivable angle to keep all lines as near to perfectly straight and square as possible. Dad had the transit. I have virtually no sense of spatial relations. In the back none of this mattered much to me, as no one would likely ever see any possible imperfections. The front is ridiculously visible. We would have to measure.
Kevin arrived home from his motorcycle riding class just then, so we enlisted his help. Back up to the pole shed to get the 150 foot measuring tape. Back down to the field to start measuring.
We measured as best we could from the corners of the loafing sheds to where we thought the fence should be. Our target was 40 feet from the shed to the new and improved fence line. In went posts at both ends, from which we strung a reference line of orange baling twine. Having measured, looked and planned, you would think that the line would be straight. We no sooner put post 3 in the ground when the realization struck that the line could not possibly be straight. Something was horribly wrong. I think. Since the gravel lane in front of the pastures meanders in a line with many curves (due to the large piles of topsoil which our excavator has yet to remove from the property) having any point of reference for the eye is not possible. The standing fence line was hastily thrown in, and is is no way even something that resembles a straight line, making visual clarity even more difficult to come by.
On that note, and as the sun was well on its way down, we decided to quit for the day. Jennifer and I are going to give it a try again, perhaps on Tuesday.
I can definitively state that sitting at a desk in an office does nothing to prepare one for manual labor.
Stacking hay this week (please, let it be next week) will put me in the hospital.
Cheryl Mathis said:
Billie. I am exhausted just reading this! Good job!
July 15th, 2008 at 3:35 pm #
PackOne said:
That was an awesome episode.
July 17th, 2008 at 12:27 pm #