Two for Three

Well, our plans to get the auger to dig all of the remaining holes fell through last night when we went to Home Depot.  Rick had called; the man who answered said that the auger was there and that we could come and get it.  Our bad.  We ate dinner first, and by the time we went to Home Depot someone else had come in and rented the auger for today.  We both were disappointed, but life goes on.

So instead of digging lots of holes with the power auger, we opted for digging two more holes (we already had one dug on the north side) and three more panels.  The work has to continue if we are going to get most of this fence up before Rick's Achilles surgery, so two holes for three more fence posts was what we did today.

The day actually started with me taking care of some inside house work while Rick went back to Home Depot for 30 more bags of cement.  What a way to start the day!  He was tired before we even started to work on the yard, but we needed the extra cement if we wanted to continue with our building process.

The first hole on the east side went smoothly.  There is little to get in the way, and the soil is moist on that side of the yard, so Rick had that hole dug in about half an hour.

The hole on the north side took a little more time.  The ground is both higher and drier there, so the clay has to be broken up like concrete.  Speaking of concrete, in the hole he dug today, Rick actually found a large chunk of it.The chunk definitely was poured by someone a long time ago.  I figure some past owner of this house had a clothesline pole in that location, with the opposite end of the lines connected to the back of the house.  With a little prying, Rick was able to get the chunk out without too many problems.

Rick walks away from the first completed panel of the day.

We put the first post in about mid-morning.  Rick had cut holes in two end posts yesterday so we would be able to step up the north side fence again today.  How great it was to have that option available today! We started with the north side because we wanted to put up two posts on that side today. We put in the first one, and while that post's cement had time to settle and to set, we moved on to the east side panel.

The east side panel almost reaches behind our shed.  With the next one,
we will block out that part of the neighborhood.

We put in the second post and fence panels just before lunch.  I am so happy to get those panels in to block out the rental properties behind us.  The renters have a bunch of loud children, and they neither rake nor mow the back portion of the property more than a couple of times a year.  Having them out of sight -- and having them not being able to see into our back yard and patio -- will be a relief.  With the panel we put in today, we almost have our privacy on that side of the yard.

This fellow really was a turkey as he decided
not to help us build our fence!

After lunch, we went out to complete the third panel.  As I went to the front yard to sweep out the cement debris from the back of the truck, my neighbor across the street, Kathy, started to yell, "Look!  A turkey!"  Sure enough, an absolutely huge tom turkey was walking down the middle of her neighbor's yard.  Then the turkey crossed the street and walked between our house and the neighbor's house.

"Ah, help at last,"  I thought.  Sadly, he veered away from our yard and took off down the adjacent street.  Maybe he got wise when he smelled what I have in the crock pot for dinner tonight-- a turkey breast!

The two new panels on the north side almost give us -- and our neighbors --
privacy from each other.  One more panel will block them from seeing
our patio and back yard from their den windows.

We finished the third panel about 2:00 p.m.  This panel required the stepped up post that we cut yesterday, so when we add more panels on that side, we will be ready to just build out from there.

With the digging and cement work done, we cleaned up the yard.  Then Rick took the box of post caps and installed them on our finished posts.  We cannot put caps on the posts from which we need to build tomorrow, so those were the only ones he did not complete.  As he was doing that, I took the shovel and the garden rake and tired to redistribute the dirt that we had removed from the holes.

With each hole, post, and panel, we get closer to our goal of completing the fence -- with the exception of the gates -- before May 19 when Rick is due to have surgery.  With each hole, post, and panel, we also gain more privacy in our back yard, and that is our ultimate goal.