More Fence Building or All Post Hole Diggers are NOT Alike

So I mentioned that building our neighbor's fence started with our intention to rebuild our fence.  We had all the supplies for both fences delivered at the same time so we had piles of posts, 2x4s and pickets in our driveway for several weeks before we could get back into our backyard to finish that project.  We took down our fence the day after we worked on our neighbor's fence, but Easter was the next weekend so we had to wait another week to get back to our fence.  Randy had an entire day set aside to dig holes and sink the new posts, but things didn't quite work as well as he planned.  Does that ever happen at your house?  I guess the first mistake was trying to do it all himself.  (I had to work.)  The second was planning on an auger being strong enough to cut through the clay in our backyard.  That failed miserably and he ended up having to dig all the holes with a manual post hole digger.

 When we cut down the old fence, out neighbor's backyard was exposed and in the back corner (behind the tree in the second picture) there is a little table and a couple of chairs.  So our neighbor meandered out to watch Randy undertake this task.   He sat down and sipped his beer as Randy struggled to work the auger.  Now I wasn't there, so I heard this account secondhand, but I heard that there was a bit of mocking and perhaps even taunting as Randy labored to dig holes.  But after it was clear that the auger wasn't gong to work, our neighbor pitched in and dug nearly half of the holes along one side of the yard.  He had also convinced Randy to sink the posts 24 inches rather than a mere 18.  By the time I arrived home from work at nearly 5 pm, they were both petering out and there were still 8 holes to dig.  They had decided to chip out the old concrete for one of the posts and they were in the process of sinking the new post when I arrived.  I decided to help by grabbing a bag of concrete.  Do you know that they weigh 80 pounds??  A little old bag of quikrete!  So I hobbled over with the new bag and barely got it to the ground without tipping over.

After that post was in the ground, our neighbor turned supervisor and watched Randy and me dig the rest of the holes.  He sipped another beer and told us when we reached the magic depth.  Truly he was very helpful (I know I sound slightly sarcastic...)  He helped us water down the holes to soften the clay making it easier to dig out.  And he offered to loan us his post holes digger so that Randy and I could both dig at the same time.  And his was much better than ours so yeah!  The older tools always seem to be more effective.  Not sure about that.

So by nearly 7 pm we finally had all the holes dug, but no posts.  So that meant the next day we spent sinking posts, since Randy now had me, his ever-faithful helper.  This was one line of holes at the beginning of the day.  You can see the nice piles of mud next to them.  That will be important later...

This is the line between our helpful neighbor's yard and ours.  I have to add that he had a little incentive for helping us replace the fence.  He had a huge backyard party planned for the next weekend and he really wanted a fence!  I think it would have made for a bigger party!

This was my incentive for replacing the fence:  We have a drain in the back corner of our yard, on an easement between the property lines.  Travis was somehow attracted to it and liked to dig in it.  You know, the dirt is always browner on the other side!  A side note:  Look at our neighbor's fence, still standing and everything!

Seriously, they weigh 80  pounds!!

And they are deceptively small.  This is to get perspective.  The bags are smaller than Justin and he only weighs 22 pounds!

Remember the piles of mud?  Justin thought they looked fun and squishy!

Randy worked hard at digging those holes.  The other corner of our yard has an easement with a telephone box in it.  That made for even more holes and more posts and corners!

Finally putting in the first post of the day.

Travis took to tree climbing.  Ami and Uncle Jerry, here's a good picture of the color of our house!

And at the end of the day, the back line of our yard has posts!

Our neighbor had hope that the fence would be completed when the posts were up.

Now that the posts are set, we have a crew coming next weekend to help us finish.  But in the meantime, my mom, the boys, and I have to make a quick trip to Seattle to help prepare for our grandson/cousin/nephew's arrival!