The Slow Motion Retirement Plan

   / The Slow Motion Retirement Plan
  • Thread Starter
#41  
no, it wasn't that hot. the posts are being set 39" in the ground without concrete. i use water to help me pack the the clumpy clay soil in tightly around the post. i dump about 6 or 8 inches of dirt in the hole, wet it down, dump another couple of inches of dirt, and have at it with the tamping end of my spud bar. the posts seem to end up as firmly planted in the ground as one could wish. i normally have an array of one gallon water jugs to do this with, but i forgot them and all i had was a half case of the little water bottles.

interestingly, the temperature out there usually runs 8 to 10 degrees cooler than in the denver metro area. i guess it's the heat island effect.

the soil seems to have about 8 inches of topsoil on top of clay. i don't see why we couldn't have a garden, and my wife and i sure intend to try.

i'll be back out tomorrow. i'm running out of time to get this gate in.
 
   / The Slow Motion Retirement Plan #42  
I find it curious how people in our microwave, have-it-now, culture have somehow managed to redefine debt. Somehow if the interest rate on your loan is low or zero percent, it isn't debt. If you have a 30 yr mortage, owe $40K on cars, but have no credit car debt you somehow consider yourself to not be in debt. In the mid-2000's before the banking and housing crisis, lots of people were claiming it was stupid to have no house mortgage. So now what do those people have to say about the millions of people who bought 0% down houses whose house prices dropped 20%, 30%, or 50%? Those people can't sell their houses and are trapped. Talk about a miserable position to be in without any good options!

A $100K mortage at 0% interest is still $100K of debt and still involves risk. When the great depression hit, the people who were in debt were the ones who lost their homes. The people without debt were able to manage and many of them prospered in the process.

End of rant.

However, most people that had no debt had no home to begin with. With these low interest rates it makes no sense to rent and to save the money to pay cash for the home means years of sacrifice. Nice to get out of debt, but there is nothing wrong with going into manageable debt to own property.
 
   / The Slow Motion Retirement Plan
  • Thread Starter
#43  
looking a little better now

photo%252878%2529.JPG
 
   / The Slow Motion Retirement Plan #44  
Wow, dh, as a southerner, those wide open spaces look so different to me! Around my place, when you go for a walk in the woods, you'd better take a machete to cut your way! And, spray to keep the red bugs (chiggers), ticks, etc off ye hide.

Those posts look good. Should be strong enough. Keep them photos coming!
 
   / The Slow Motion Retirement Plan #46  
I can't think of anywhere in Georgia where I could gaze that far....we have trees and hills etc. everywhere ...that would take some getting used to for a Southerner...Sure is wide open country though and your posts look good and sturdy...
 
   / The Slow Motion Retirement Plan #47  
When I built my fence, I didn't find twitch sticks to work worth a darn. I always tension until I see the post "set-back" just a tiny bit, so I know the wire is doing it's job. The wire would stretch and get loose, and I would re-tighten it, and that would keep happening until the wire busted from being twisted so tight. It was also pretty difficult, when twisting the wire, to keep the loops of wire even. What would happen would be that one loop would be a bit shorter than the others, and so when I started twisting, basically all of the tension was on a single strand of wire, while the others had a little slack in them. This may have related to why I kept breaking wire.

I switched to ratchet strainers and have been happy since. A little more expensive, but not so much in the grand scheme of things, and much easier to adjust than a twitch stick.
 
   / The Slow Motion Retirement Plan #49  
if it had been beer cans though we would have figured out the 'problem' lol
:licking: Seven would be a good number of beer cans to see. It would most probably mean there were five or seventeen more on ice in the cooler and explain why more posts were not set in the fence line as yet. :drink:
 
   / The Slow Motion Retirement Plan
  • Thread Starter
#50  
:licking: Seven would be a good number of beer cans to see. It would most probably mean there were five or seventeen more on ice in the cooler and explain why more posts were not set in the fence line as yet. :drink:

lol, yes indeed. sadly, i'm just slow.

as for the twitch sticks, they are just what i had when it came time to tighten. i'll let the wire relax some, retension it, and swap the sticks for rebar.

and for all you southern guys, this area of the country gets an average of 16.62 inches of moisture per year. it doesn't rain all that much, usually, after the first of june. if we had southern rainfall, we would have just as much vegetation as you guys do. i will say that i sometimes envy the fact that southern summers are green. around here, summer time is usually brown.
 
 
Top