I'm building this turkey pen, and, well, I'll admit it. It would really bug me to have a crooked fence. The turkeys will not care. Visitors to the farm will never notice. I'll probably take it down in a few months after the turkey laying season, but darn it, while it's there, it's gonna be straight. So I string a line so that I can drive the fence posts in.
But then, with the line in place, I now have to make sure that they're all the same height. Same sort of impulse, but pretty much uncontrollable. If they aren't the same height I'll look at it every day when I go by and think about it. So making them the same height will save me months of mental anguish.
Perfect!! I'm driving these with the tractor bucket, and I actually have a pretty good control over the depth, and the string is pretty visible, and... yes. Perfect. Now for the next pole.
No! NO! The ground was softer here and the bucket drove it down too much. I should have used the hand pounder! agggh! it's off. So I'm out there trying to pull it up a couple of inches by hand, and I'm failing. I'm laughing a bit at myself, but this feels deadly serious. The posts must be on a line, and they must be level. oh wait. are they on a line?
Yes! They are on a line. And now they're all level.
I go through this every time I build a fence. No matter how small or insignificant.
Move somewhere where there are rocks/boulders in the ground. You will get over your obsessive compulsive thing really fast. Rocks dictate how deep and where you are going to pound posts.
ReplyDeleteI second that. Bruce, I'm pretty sure that you'd curl up into a ball and die if you ever had to work a limestone slope in the Ozarks.
ReplyDeleteYou'd lose your OCD tendencies around our property too - I've never pounded in a post yet where it didn't decide to scooch or twist or lean a bit one way or the other by the time I got it in. I've never pulled out a post for being crooked, long as it looks like it will hold the fence up just fine!
ReplyDeleteWhere I come from fences had to be straight -- for miles. For a long time I couldn't get it right until I saw a farmer from home do it. He put up the end posts and then stretched the woven wire (or barbed wire) with his tractor. Then he put in the rest of the posts. I never was able to try that, since I gave up on animals, but it always seemed like a good idea.
ReplyDeleteAh Bruce? I'm pretty sure there is medication for this ;>)
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