During the winter we noticed another of our fenceposts had gone wiggly with the base probably rotten, this at the side between our back garden and the neighbours. It was staked up on a temporary basis just to stabilise it through the winter and spring winds but I suspect that would not last another November. Today it was time to complete a longer term fix to see if we can achieve another three years of not costing much to keep the garden enclosed. I was expecting to be thwarted by existing concrete footings, but this was one of the posts that was simply compacted into the soil, hence the rot. That was a mixed feeling surprise as I dug the hole with a lot less resistance, but also realised that a lot of the other posts would be in the same condition.
I managed to dig a good hole about seventeen inches deep last week, scrounged a two by four off one of my buddies, well it was more a barter type situation, I swapped some home made hot sauce for the piece of wood. This was then cut to length and I attached a six inch piece at ninety degrees about six inches from the bottom for more concrete contact and fore/aft stability, then I made a frame to add another two inches of depth to cater for a couple of bags of Quikrete. Last week Quikrete was $8.49 for a 30kg bag at Canadian Tire, which seemed like a deal, so I bought a couple and we managed to get them into the back of the car without dropping anything or turning each other into grey powder covered ghosts. This morning starting at about 9.30am with great help with the heavy lifting from the forewoman, everything came together in less than an hour, including full cleanup, it feels like a weight off my sore shoulders.
