Lots of Holes and Help from Owen

Yesterday we made more progress with the fence as we continued to dig holes and to erect fence panels. Lindsay and her family came over to check the results, and we put Owen to work.  He wanted to "help" build the fence, so Rick got him dressed in protective gear and let him help glue the tops to the completed fence posts.  Owen was a little insecure on the ladder, but Grandpa kept him safe.  The fancy caps are the finishing touch to this ornate fence.  By mid-afternoon, we were done with the work for the day.

Owen waits while Rick applies adhesive to the inside
of the post cap.

Apparently, the glue does not smell very good!

After the cap was in place, Owen had to hold
it down firmly for 10 seconds while the glue set.

We did not waste the rest of the day, however.  Rick contacted Home Depot, and we were able to rent the towable hydraulic auger so that we could dig holes on the south side of the lot today.  Of course, Rick could not wait to try it, so in our good clothes, we had to try to dig a hole... with not great results.

The first hole we tried, the auger went down a couple of feet and stopped dead.  We had hit a large tree root, so that was the end of that hole.  Rick will have to take his SawzAll to that hole to eliminate the root, and then we can dig the rest of the hole by hand.

Not to be defeated, we tried a second hole.  We got down a few feet again, but we had a terrible time getting the auger back up.  Rick was tired, frustrated, and ready to return the auger right then and there.  He figured out, however, that cutting through the grass was part of the trouble as it gummed up the blades, so we decided to try something different this morning.

Owen tries his hand at cleaning out one of the shallow
holes by using Grandpa's post hole digger.  He actually
got quite a bit out of the hole.

Ten covered holes (to keep out children and
baby bunnies) now line the south side of our property.

Today, we went out, located where all of the holes should be, and then cut out the sod and dug down about a foot so we would have a "starter hole" in which to place the auger.  That system worked very well.  Although the auger still took both of us to push down and to frequently pull up to expel the dirt, by noon today we had completed 10 holes!  Success!

Lindsay half-filled the wheelbarrow, and
Owen used his strength to take it across the yard
to our dump site.

Christopher brought Owen over to watch the auger since he is fascinated with machines, and afterward he helped us move some of the dirt across the yard to where we need to fill in low spots.

Tomorrow, we will continue to put up fence panels.  We still need to dig one hole on the north side.  That must be done by hand so we do not cut through our sump-pump drain line.  We also need to hand dig the southeast corner post hole since that hold is very near utility lines.  Once all of the holes are dug, we can spend the rest of the time just "planting" poles and filling in the fence.  We hope to have everything completed by next Friday.