Those posts standing out there like pimples on a kid's face are my spotters.
The architect wanted a level fence around the pond. So the engineers set up a laser level and walked around the pond placing little flags at the proper elevation every thirty feet or so.
That of course meant the fence was to be one friendly son of a buck winding in and out with the terrain. I do friendly fences. But I don't do wavey fences. Hence the spotters.
By placing spotters at some of the flags I could get the lay of the fenceline. And I could straighten it out or radius it as necessary. But in no way was I going to radius it in and then out, not in this lifetime, a man has his pride.
About a hundred and twenty five posts, ninety six and a half inch centers. Three cans of upside down paint later I had all these X's on the ground. A line at ninety six and a half inches from center of last mark. And then across it was a line that had what I wanted for the fence line, aka center of hole.
The fence is six feet tall. I'm five seven on a bad day, five eight on a good one. A friendly smile on a beautifull face can make me feel ten feet tall. No such luck down there next to the pond.
So how is a fine figured man of five seven supposed to look over the top of a post seventy three inches out of the ground? Yup, a five gallon bucket works. But when the ground is sloped and so slick you can hardly stand up on your own two feet standing on a bucket is suicide waving hello.
As they say in France, "if you can't go to the top of the post then you have to bring it down to you." So I bought some white marker pens and marked each and every post at sixty one inches. I can see down sixty one inches with no problem.
Holes are marked. Then the Little Beaver Hydraulic auger is very carefully hauled down to the fence line. Of course the third hole it tipped over cylinder side down. I was able to shut off the motor before it bent a rod. But I didn't get it uprighted before the cylinder filled with oil. It wouldn't have been right to pull the spark plug to pump out the oil without breaking the sparkplug. So we didn't. It was time for a new plug anyway.
So for about half the holes brother held the Beaver to keep it upright. I think the Beaver enjoyed the interaction more than he did. At least I hope so.
Then I came back through cleaning out the holes with my trusty manual post hole diggers and putting posts in the holes and leaning them out. If you lean them in they get in the way of sighting them in, not good, guaranteed bad word generator.
See me, nice guy, great smile, cleaning holes.
