6.2.2014

Jim had his final post-surgery knee check up today - all good news.  Not that it was a surprise - you'd never know he had anything done by the things he does.  But very grateful that it turned out so well.

The plan was to rent the auger today to drill the holes for the meter pedestal as well as the holes for the gate eventually.  However, when Jim called the Bobcat place, it was already gone.  However, he managed to find another rental source close by that was even a little cheaper.  This is one of those times that the truck really comes in handy - they loaded it in the back of the truck and then Jim used the forks on the Bobcat to get it down from the truck.  This is the big auger Jim is attaching to the motor assembly.

Then it's time to dig some holes!

But what else would you expect to find when you dig holes here but more big rocks?  Jim had to do a little handwork with the post hole digger to get rock chunks out. 

Thankfully, he was eventually able to dig deep enough.  The rock situation did make Jim rethink his design - instead of two posts, he'll just do one. 

He also dug another hole for the grounding rod - that has to go 8' deep which can be a long way to pound it in, so having a hole dug part way will make that job much easier down the road.

Look at all the dirt that comes out - works so much better when you don't hit giant rocks!

The resulting two deep holes in the ground.  Eventually Jim got the frame set around the post hole.  He also made a barrier with the dirt to prevent erosion and put planks on top so that nothing falls in.

Then it was down to the end of the driveway to talk about where we wanted the gate to eventually be.  Jim said he didn't want to get all nerdy engineer on me, but he wanted the gate perpendicular to the tangent of the arc of the driveway.  Hmm.  I told him that it was nerdy engineer, but that's fine as long as he understood and got it the way he wanted.

This soil down here was probably 4 feet of top soil from all the erosion over the years - it was easy digging.

 

Hole two...

Then Jim drove the Bobcat back up, exchanged the auger for the forks, and used them to put a giant rock over these holes.

Mission accomplished - all holes dug, the auger attachment is cleaned up and back on the truck ready to be returned tomorrow.