Make Up Day

Yesterday we had rain and wind all day long, so it was a lost day as far as making any progress on the fence was concerned.  Rick tried to make up for that lag in time today, and he almost worked himself and me to death in the process.

We are waiting for a new router bit before we can add panels to the north side fence.  The land gradually goes uphill from the back corner of the yard, ending a full 12 inches above the corner where we have already put in the fence. We are glad that the yard is shaped this way because the water drains away from the house in the back yard; however, we knew that we would have to "step up" the fence on that side to accommodate the changes.  In order to cut the new design of the top and bottom rails into the blank side of a post, Rick had to buy a router bit that would easily cut through 1/4 inch plastic.  The bit should be delivered sometime today.

 The lack of a bit did not stop us from working in the yard from 7:00 this morning until about 3:30 this afternoon, though.  Did I mention yet that I am tired?

We began the day with an early-morning trip to Home Depot to purchase 30 more 60-pound bags of cement.  We have gotten to know one of the workers in that department, so he kindly put 30 bags onto a skid and fork-lifted them into our truck.  Of course, the problem is that we do not have a fork lift at our house to unload the bags from the truck!  We put 15 into a stack at the front of the garage and hauled a few of them into the back yard to use today.

The boards with bricks on top each indicate a place where Rick
dug a 48 inch deep hole for the next fence posts.

Then we tackled the holes.  In all, Rick dug three holes on the north side and two holes on the east side.  The east side holes gave us no trouble, but two of the three north side holes had really compacted dirt that we had to almost chisel loose to take it out of the hole.  That was hard work!

Rick dug two more holes to the right of the existing fence line
on the east side of the property.

We finished the last hole just after lunch.  Then Rick decided that we should try to get at least one fence panel in before we stopped for the day.  We used the transit to determine that we have about a 7 inch dip in the middle of the property line across the east side fence line.  We talked about dropping the fence down, but since we have had so many loads of dirt from the holes we have already dug, we decided to fill in the lower part of the yard with that clay and dirt, and then just run the fence straight across the back.  If we had not done that, we would have had to drop down two panels of fence and then bring the fence back up again as the landscape rose.  We both thought dropping the fence and then raising it again would look rather strange, so I am glad that we agreed to just run the fence at one level. We can fill in the yard in front and behind it to level the dip in the property line.

The piles of dirt on the right hand side of the picture show where
we have to add soil to build up the indentation in the yard.

Since we could build no further on the north side, we added another panel to the east side.  Unfortunately, we failed to understand how much water had really filled the hole due to all of the rain we received yesterday.  As we poured the cement into the hole, the water rose and started making a royal mess of everything.  We finally reached the top of the hole with cement, but we both feel that that particular post will be a weak spot in the whole structure due to all of the water.

A few days ago, I heard the little girl who lives in one of the houses behind our house say to her brother, "I wonder what they are doing over there.  Mama says they are just making a big mess."  Today, I would have to agree with that little girl's mama.

One more panel gives us just a little more privacy from
the adjacent street and the neighbors behind our house.

We learned our lesson.  Tomorrow we have enough holes dug to put up at least three more panels of fencing.  However, before we mix the cement, we will be sure to check for water and to bail out all of the holes.

Four-Panel Progress

I am really tired tonight, so this blog will be brief.  We made great progress on the fence today, partly because we already had four holes dug and ready for posts.

Our starting point this morning was our off-center post.  The good news
is that we were able to correct the problem with the next panels.

This morning started damp and foggy with the promise of rain by 3:00 p.m.  We figured we would work as long as we could before we had to stop due to weather.  While Rick ran to Home Depot to get more cement, I set up the back yard for a day of work.

With the first two panels in, we "dry fit" the lower
rail on the next section of fence.  We had to slightly
bury the bottom rail to follow the contours of the lot.

The first two panels were only four-foot panels thanks to the roots and wire issues when digging the holes.  We figured those would go quickly, but since we have never used this exact fence design before, completing the first two panels took a bit longer than either of us would have liked. We worked from 7:30 until a little after noon getting the first two panels assembled and cemented into place.

The design on this fence is a little more ornate than the fence we installed in Florida.  While that fence had fairly straight tops and bottoms, this fence has a much more detailed design.  That makes sliding the top and bottom rails into the posts a bit more complex, and I am guessing that this fence also will be a royal pain in the rear to wash and to keep clean.  On the plus side, the panels on this fence seem thicker and the tracks into which they slip are deeper.  That feature will help the panels stay into place through all types of weather.

After lunch, we decided to try to get the next two panels in before the rain.  Now that we knew how to install them, these two eight-foot panels went in a little more quickly.  We still have challenges ahead of us as we know that we will have to step up the fence on the north side of the yard and step down the fence on the east side.  Such is our landscape.  We finished our work around 3:00 p.m.  The rain did not arrive until 4:00 p.m., so the weather cooperated with our timing.

The first four panels outline the northeast corner
of our back yard.  I want to plant a lilac bush in this
corner to replace the one that the tree cutters destroyed
two years ago.  This corner will be perfect!

We now have the start to our privacy in the back yard.  While we will have to take a bit of time to adjust to the more enclosed area, we no longer will have to worry about the unkept yard behind us or the prying eyes of anyone who drives down the street around the corner from our house.  The yard will be ours, free of leaves blowing in from the neighbors, and free of intrusion from the neighborhood children and dogs.

Rain is predicted for all day tomorrow, so we probably will have a day off from the mud of the back yard.  That will give us time to get inside chores completed before getting back outside.  We look forward to continuing our work.

First Post

Anyone who watches the show "Barnwood Builders" knows that as the crew disassembles or rebuilds an old log cabin, one member of the crew always shouts, "Last log!" as the last one comes down or the last one goes up to complete the job.  Today, Rick and I now can shout, "First post!"  We have had a busy weekend.

Rick took a "butt shot" of me digging a hole,
so I had to reciprocate for him.

The post hole digger is a great tool, but as the hole
gets deeper, I am not strong enough to use it.

We started yesterday again in winter parkas and hoods, but as the day warmed, we both shed layers of clothing.  We actually got to just sweatshirt weather by the end of the day.  Once again, this was a day to dig holes with the idea that if we got enough done early, we could put in the first post.  As usual, our plans were greater than our share of time or our store of energy.

Rick finally reaches the bottom of the corner pole hole.

The corner post hole that seemed so promising on Friday turned out to be a bear in the end.  As Rick dug deeper in the hole, he encountered some deeply buried roots.  They fought him all the way for about two feet until he finally broke through to clear soil, although that turned out to be stubborn clay.  We have learned that in that corner of the yard, once the clay or soil starts to get moist, we have reached our 48 inch level.  Every hole in that area has filled with about a foot of water once we finish digging it.

The corner pole is "dry fit" into the hole to see if
the hole was deep enough.  Then we took it out
for proper installation on Sunday.  Note the new
orange cement mixer.  It was a life-saver.

One of the other posts was also a problem with stubborn roots that seemed to criss-cross like an underground spider's web.  That, too, took more time that we had hoped it would, but in the end Rick got it down the required 48 inches.  The final of the three posts only took about 40 minutes to dig. It was virtually root-free and the clay portion of the soil was mixed with generous amounts of sand, so the digging was fairly easy.  (Rick deserved an easy hole after the other two!)

The patio houses all of the "through posts" and the "end posts"
that we will cut as we raise the fence or drop it down
to follow the contours of our wavy back yard.

We spent the rest of the day sorting the posts and moving them onto the back screened-in patio.  We are promised rain for Monday - Wednesday, so they are probably safer and easier to keep dry on the patio.

We had planned on cementing in the corner post yesterday, but we ran out of time and energy to do so.  That probably was good because getting up today and starting with a task that we have not done for a long time was better to do while we were fresh.

Cement work is the easiest part of this whole fencing process.  The new cement mixer we purchased is almost identical to the one we use in Florida, so there was no learning curve with the machine. We soon were back into our old routine working with the cement.  To make things easier, we put an old door on two sawhorses to act as a work table. We put the required bags of cement up on the table where Rick was able to simply slide one to the end, cut it open, and let the cement fall into the waiting mouth of the mixer.

Our wonky-donkey post that is plumb but not exactly true to the
square of the yard.  Ah, well, we can't all be perfect.

In a little over an hour, we had the corner post firmly cemented into the ground.  Unfortunately, we both were so concerned about getting it plumb that we both neglected to make sure it was perfectly in line with the other holes!  So our new fence post is pointing about 10 degrees off from where it should be.  We have a wonky-donkey corner post, so that is our whimsy point of the yard.  We will be able to recover our line by nudging the next panels into more in-line posts, but the corner post will always be a little off.  That's OK.  In this family, being a little off center is just who we all are.

Once the corner post was up, Rick decided to dig a couple more holes.  The instructions for this fence say that one can put up two sections of fencing and two posts all in one day.  With the two holes that Rick dug today, we now have two holes completed for both the north and the east sides of the yard.  If we need to cement in two in one day, we can do so.  As I said, cementing in the posts is the easy part.

The dirt from the holes is spread around to fill in
the low spots in the yard.  

We keep dumping the dirt from each hole into a really low spot in the yard.  We hope that if we can fill in that section, not only will we have a more level yard to enjoy, but we also might not have to step down the fence so much in the middle of the east side.  We'll have to see how much that dirt settles if we really receive heavy rains in the next few days.

At this point, all we can do is to keep on digging and keep on planting posts and fencing panels.  While we both will miss seeing the grove of birch trees through our back yard, we will not miss seeing the un-raked and uncut yard beneath those trees.  In the end, our enclosed yard will give us a private "outdoor room" to our Green Bay home.

Round 2: Progress on the Fence

After a miserable time in our last attempt to dig holes for the fence, we did a little better today. Actually, we did quite a bit better!

Since I last posted, Rick and I went out to the yard, and he reconfigured where we could relocate the fence posts.  We are hopefully far enough away from the telephone wires now, and we have redesigned the fence layout so we are away from the tree trunk roots.

The weather, at last, is starting to show signs of spring.  Although Rick started out in a hooded down parka as he went out to dig holes early this morning, by this afternoon, he had shed both that coat, a lighter coat, and a sweatshirt.  We were both outside today without hats or hoods covering our ears, and we did not freeze to death.  That is progress in Wisconsin.

The pink and the white hyacinths both are in full bloom
in my backyard garden.

My gardens have been busy blooming for some time now.  The early spring hyacinth are really full and pretty right now, and the peonies and rhubarb both are up about four inches.  We have lots of rain predicted for the coming week; hopefully we can work around the showers to make some progress on the fence.  The predicted temperatures should allow us to pour concrete at last!

While I did my Friday cleaning this morning, Rick went to the northeast corner of the yard to see what he could find in our new post locations.  We are going just four feet out from the corner post on both the north and the east sides, and as expected, Rick hit roots in both holes.  He had broken a SawzAll pruning blade last week which stopped our progress.  The new blade helped him uproot quite a few roots of all sizes in the first two holes.  He almost gave up on one of them, but just as he was about to quit, he found the bottom of the root and the problem.  Once that was cleared, we could see that the ground underneath was just going to be a lot of clay and dirt.

The easiest hole turned out to be the corner one!  We should be able to put in a good, firm corner for that section of the yard.

Old shelves cover the holes on the north side of the yard.
We need to keep the holes covered so no children and no
critters (like baby bunnies) fall into the holes.

As he moved down the north side, he encountered a variety of surprises: more roots where we thought there would be none, a buried tin or metal box that was empty and literally rusting to pieces, and tricky roots that looked like buried power lines.  That last problem prompted him to call Diggers Hotline again to have them come back to our yard.  The gentlemen assured us that we were far enough away from the wires, and that what looked like wires really were very black-colored tree roots.

In all, Rick dug eight holes today.  He only went down a couple of feet; that was deep enough for us to know what kind of roots or wires we might encounter.  We also established the spacing for the holes.  I am happy to see the progress he made today.  That progress gives us both hope that we will be able to build this fence by ourselves after all.

While he had the SawzAll out, Rick also dug down around the trunk of the small pine tree that our neighbor Jake had cut down. The tree was planted by the former owner of the house, and it was located right on top of the property marker.  When Jake learned that the tree really was on his land, he gladly cut it down.  The SawzAll made short work of the stump just below the ground.  Rick had to be careful, though, because the roots were right next to the telephone junction box, and there were wires everywhere.  I am happy to see the trunk gone.

Rick dug all the holes from the corner post to the trees on the
east side of the yard. 

While Rick was digging holes, I was taking the dirt to fill in the two four-foot deep holes he had previously dug in our now-abandoned positions.  Then I took some of the black dirt that he unearthed to fill in some holes and valleys in our front yard.  We have many more places in our front yard to redistribute the dirt.  That is one thing that will not be a problem with this yard renovation.  Both our back and front yard go up and down like waves on a stormy sea.

Rick talked to his doctor yesterday; his Achilles surgery is definitely set for May 19.  We need to work each day that is not wet to get as much done as possible before that time. Today showed us both that we have a good chance of getting quite a bit enclosed.

Defeated by de Fence

We are back to the drawing board.

Rick went out this morning to dig another hole (the third one) for our fence.  I knew that this hole would be the most difficult because it was very near where we have removed a fairly good-sized cottonwood tree, so I suspected that he would hit roots.  Never did I dream, however, that he would encounter what he did.

He was outside before I was, but from the kitchen window, I could see that he was already hard at work with the SawzAll.  By the time I went outside, I was shocked to see that he had cut through and chipped away at about 10 inches of tree.  He had not just come across a large, horizontal root; instead, he was trying to put a hole right through what appeared to be one side of the vertical trunk root of the tree.

Digging a hole straight down the trunk root of a tree
is not a good idea.

As the picture shows, the tree part that you see in the hole is not looking down on the root, it is looking at the side of the hole and thus the side of the tree trunk that Rick was trying to cut through.  He worked at it for a couple of hours before finally deciding that the task was impossible without a trencher with a fairly good-sized bucket at the front.  We could not possibly put a hole in that location.

We looked down the line of post locations at the back of the lot, and Rick decided to try a hole in the other potentially trouble spot located just behind one of our birch trees.  He dug down one shovelful of dirt before encountering a web-like structure of roots.  Thankfully, the largest was about an inch in diameter, so we were able to use a pruner to go through those roots.  They took time and were irritating to deal with, but after the trunk root, these were manageable.

As he dug a little further, though, Rick came upon what we suspected was a telephone line since we were near the line the utility man had painted on the ground.  As we looked closer, we both thought for an instant that we had already severed a line.  Closer inspection showed us that the severed line really was a tree root, but the whole experience made us pause.  We also thought that we had found the main telephone line, but that, too, proved to be a large root.

Leaving that hole about a foot and a half deep, we moved on to the south side of the house.  Rick wanted to see if another hole near the painted lines would result in us finding the buried utility line.  This time, to our surprise, we definitely found an underground cable, but it was going perpendicular to the painted line that supposedly marked utility lines going either to our house or to our neighbor's house.  If we had known for sure that the line belonged to us, we would have just cut it since we no longer use any telephone land lines in our house.  However, without trenching up half of the yard, there was little way of knowing exactly where that wayward line lead.

That was three for three today, and Rick and I both were frustrated with the whole process.  Our only alternative, as we could see it, was to totally redesign the fence and to relocate all of the stakes to where we should dig the holes.  That meant that we would have to fill in the two four-foot deep holes that Rick killed himself to dig the past two days, but we saw little choice.

We decided that if we started in our original starting place on the northeast corner of the lot, we could go out with two shorter, four-foot panels on the north and the east sides.  Doing so would move all of the posts on both sides down four more feet, thus straddling on the east side where we knew the trunk root was for the old cottonwood tree, and moving further away from the birch tree. On the north side, we would move the posts four feet away from the wayward telephone cable.

To avoid the underground wires -- and hopefully be able to use a power auger to dig more holes -- we moved the fence line another foot closer to our house on the north side.  We also moved the fence line a bit closer into the property on the east side.  While Rick relocated the lines, I took a shovel and filled in all of the holes that he had dug today.  Then, together, we reset the stakes where the new holes should go.

This has been a frustrating day, to say the least.  The fact that the skies are cloudy and the weather is just damp and cold did not help our dispositions.  Rick had worked four hours only to have no new holes dug that we could use.  We have a new plan, but we are back to square one as far as the labor is concerned.

I just hope that this time we have a plan that will work in the end.

In Defense of Building a Fence

Since almost the entire nation is in lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, people are spending a great deal more time at home.  The one positive outcome of all of that home-time is that people are beginning to find time to do all of those home improvement jobs that they were able to ignore in the past.  Home Depot, Lowes, and Menards are doing booming business.  Of course, we are no exception.  We always can find something else to do to improve the property.

I promised Rick last year that if we did not move, he could build a fence around our property this year.  We have lots of trees and blowing leaves to our north, and lots of rental properties to our south. Also, since we are only one house in from the corner, people can see right into our back yard and our back patio from the street around the corner.  We are spoiled by the privacy we have with our fenced yard in Florida, and we want the same thing in this house, too.

The survey helped us locate the back corner of the lot.

Our first step was to get our land surveyed.  We had a pretty good idea where the lot lines were, so that survey gave us more legal peace of mind than any new information.  We did a preliminary stake-out of the fence.

We ordered the white vinyl fencing material from Lowes in Appleton, and last Tuesday they delivered it to our house.  Sadly, the semi-driver had a large forklift which was great at getting the three pallets of materials off the truck, but it was too heavy and too wide to carry those pallets to our back yard.

Rick and I spent quite a bit of time in bitterly cold weather disassembling the pallets so we could haul the materials to the back yard.  We had a small garden cart, so with some creative stacking, we were able to take back three fencing panel packets at a time.  We stacked the panel packets and then all of the fence posts on a slab next to our garden shed.  Then we wrapped the whole pile in tarps to keep it both together and somewhat dry.

The fencing materials are all piled together next to the shed.

Of course, in the midst of doing all that moving, klutzy me tripped and fell on some pallet debris.  I fell back on my behind, which is good since I have more padding there than on any other place on my body.  The bad thing is that I am still sore, so I suspect that I badly bruised or even broke my tailbone.  Thank God for Advil.

Rick ordered a cement mixer from Home Depot which he picked up and we assembled this week.  We have not ordered the cement mix yet since the evening temperatures are still dipping into the 20s. We could not pour cement yet anyway.  Right now temperatures are 30 degrees below normal for this time of the year.  We hope that they soon will warm up so we can start to build the fence in May.

Until then, we have taken out our new transit to measure the high and the low points of the yard.  The yard dips down a total of 19 inches from its highest to its lowest point.  Lots of measurements and drawings later, Rick thinks we have a plan of where to step down (or up) the fence so that the tops remain level.  We did not want to follow the terrain as some fencing companies do.  I would get dizzy each time I looked at the fence if we did so.

Of course, the orange mark indicating a telephone cable is right
next to our property line.

The first disappointing news came when we called 811 to have the utility lines marked.  The electrical lines are no problem, but the telephone lines run right along the property lines.  That foiled our plans to use a power auger to dig the majority of the holes since state law says one cannot use a power auger within 18 inches of any underground utility lines.

The frustrating point is that most people do not even use the telephone lines anymore.  However, since we have rental properties next to us and all along the road to the south of us, we have to be careful of the lines and to give the utility box at the corner of the property proper clearance.

Rather than waste time waiting for the weather to warm, we decided to dig one hole a day.  That way, we will have many of the holes completed when we are ready to start building the fence, and we will not kill ourselves trying to dig holes and build fences all in one day.

Rick dug the first hole near the sump pump outlet on the north side of the house.  The sump pump drains into a mini storm sewer that the previous homeowner had put in before we bought the house.  We were not quite sure where the sewer line was, so Rick carefully started to dig a hole.  He actually never hit the storm sewer, so we were lucky in that respect.

Unfortunately, what Rick did find was the composition of the soil.  The ground started with about a foot of good black topsoil.  They Rick hit a layer of clay for another foot or so.  That layer ended, and we were back to dirt for another couple of feet before Rick hit a second layer of clay.  The hole finally ended in dirt, but the first dig confirmed our worst fears: we would have to dig through clay.  Right now, the clay is still moist from the winter thaw, so it is fairly soft.  As the soil dries, however, it will become rock hard.  We need to keep digging while we still have spring conditions!

What every digger does NOT want to see: a root going
directly through the hole he is trying to dig.

Rick dug the second hole today.  Again, he started with black dirt, and then a layer of clay.  As he returned to a layer of dirt, however, he ran into another obstacle that I had warned him we would find.  He hit a root from one of the trees that we had had removed from the property.  The root was about 4-5 inches in diameter, and it had one fairly large side root branching off from the main root. SawsAll to the rescue!  We learned with our house in Florida that a SawsAll with a good pruning blade can work miracles when it comes to removing roots.

Rick and the SawsAll tackle the root.

The root took a few creative cuts and a bit of prying up with a long bar, but Rick finally was able to work past it.  A few other roots buried lower were more annoying than being an obstacle, so we kept on digging.  We had to use the bar to break up the clay as we got to a deeper level before we could use the post-hole digger to bring up the soil.  Then we reached the next challenge.

"Sher, I think we hit water," Rick said as he pulled up some very moist, heavy clay.  Sure enough.  We have always known that we had an underground creek and high water table toward the back of our property.  That is why our sump pump drips constantly this time of year.  As Rick finished the last couple of inches of the 48 inch deep hole, the hole slowly started to fill with some water.  Thankfully, concrete will cure even under water, so life will go on.

A pail full of root pieces shows who won in the end.

Wavy landscape, wonky underground wires, clay, roots, and water.  I certainly hope that those items will complete the list of things we have to deal with on this project.  In the end, I know we will be happy that we have added a fence.  Let's just hope we can get it up without it getting us down.