The southern fence

This was the week we decided to fix our southern fence line (I use the term loosely since the whole fence is only like 125 feet long, but hey...) which has been flapping in the wind for the last couple of years.

There is nothing like waking up at 2 a.m. to the snap, pop of the fence waving back and forth in the wind. Both our's and our neighbor's bedrooms are with in 20-30 ft. of the offending fence sections and this year we have both finally had it. Time for some home improvement efforts.

Thursday we started taking down fence sections so we could get to the posts. Even though the posts were wobbly it's still amazing how long it takes to knock one of those suckers out of the ground. I don't even want to mention the one that smacked me in the noggin Friday night and felt like it knocked a tooth loose, but I can't work a project like this without some kind of mishap like that. So I enjoyed a headache the rest of the weekend. That felt reeaaallll good Saturday trying to dig more dirt out of the holes so we could put down the gravel we needed. Pound, Pound, POUND!! Owwww....


Our neighbors sprinklers accidently came on Friday night and it was amazing how much water was still sitting in the holes that morning. Either our water table is super high or our dirt doesn't drain worth squat. I think there is a good amount of clay in the dirt. One hole had a full shovel's head worth standing in it still. At least it helped make the digging easier and added some moisture for the cement.

We decided we didn't like the cement's instructions to just pour the cement in and add water. What a joke. We tried it on one and just about pulled it all out and started over, but we managed to get it stirred up pretty decently in the hole. The rest we mixed in the wheelbarrow and poured in. MUCH more satisfactory. So we got all the posts in and cemented down. We were so proud! They looked so straight and perfect...!

Then we started trying to put up some of the fence lengths. Hah! Of course, none of them fit right now. The old fence posts had apparently not been leveled very well. Each section has three 2x4's holding the slats in place and each 2x4 was a different length on each section. We found a couple we could make fit with the judicios use of a slack line supplied by our neighbor's friend who was helping us out. (It's good to know rock climbers. They have great equipment!)

Well, with all that the couple of posts we were working on felt like they were loosening in their foundations, so we decided to call it a day and let the rest cure before attacking them. That's a good thing, 'cause everyone was getting pretty tired and a bit frustrated with the fence sections.

So after a decent day of digging holes, pouring cement, some frustration and lots of sun, we called it good. I was really glad since I think I was on the verge of heat exhaustion. I was feeling the sun I'd soaked up, even with all the sunscreen I'd put on. I went and grabbed me a nice cold BridgeHampton from Gandolfo's, crashed on the couch and watched some Narnia (LW&W) in HD. Ahhh! What a way to end the day!