Post holes and tape measures

First he mows the grass, then he waters it.

Garry's busy at the Crawfords again.

Yesterday I was going to paint a gate (actually the Crawford's gate, since they are in Canada right now and the freshly painted fence makes the rusty gate look sad) when I finished my post. I did finish repainting the outdoor table in black over there before lunch, but decided to wait until after lunch to work on the gate.

Garry and I had made our first trip to Metro Cash and Carry (kind of like Costco) in six or seven weeks on Wednesday evening and he had decided to buy tortillas, so it was Taco Thursday for lunch. I even pulled some green onions to chop up, to go with the iceberg lettuce and tomatoes we bought the day before to top our tacos. Valentina was unsure she'd like it, but she finished her taco. These were big 12 inch ones, normally we only find 6 inch ones for sale, if we see them.

After lunch I carried a can of paint and a brush out to the gate, but realized I needed to scrape loose paint off the metal first. This turned into an all afternoon project, with a flat spackling tool as my only implement, so the gate will be painted today.

I did get interrupted by Garry needing help a couple times. Max had convinced him to change the layout of the drive shed. In fact it's in a different place on the lot, directly behind Kolya's house, with the back next to the neighbor's garden. They will be able to access it from our yard, going behind the Crawford's garden, or off the laneway between the two streets in the village.

Max had decided to try out the old post hole auger they made a few years ago. They hadn't tried it before, because it used a lot of hydraulic oil, because it leaked... a lot. I think they said it lost a litre or more for every hole they dug yesterday. Plus its kind of awkward, as you can see here, with the augur attached to the bobcat and the hydraulics coming from the tractor. It's a dance as they maneuver it into position for the next hole. However, the post hole digger they borrowed just wasn't able to dig meter deep wide holes.

They were digging the back row of post holes already, but Garry needed help laying out the rest of the holes. He had bought a new long rouletka (tape measure) to lay out the building the first time, but now that they were changing where it was he was hunting all over for the rouletka. We know it was in the van at one point, but maybe it was left somewhere... no one knew where it was. Chances are it walked away from the building site or the van.

He gave up and decided to measure out lengths of six metres (the regular tape measure he could find) on blue plastic baler twine to square up his building. I was conscripted to help with this. Unfortunately, after we finished, it was not square (plastic twine stretches.) He could tell because the sides weren't the same size. He took off to Nova Lenya to buy a new rouletka and an hour later we did it all over again with his new long rouletka, and moved a lot of the stakes to the correct places to put the posts.

Today they hope to finish digging holes for the drive shed. They have to let the hydraulic oil cool down after a hole or two, once it gets hot, it leaks even more. They are re-using old oil that they drained from the New Holland tractor, because they change it often in that new expensive tractor. Garry tell me that they have discovered if they throw a bucket of water in as they finish, more of the dirt sticks to the auger and gets out of the hole. 

Here's a quote from Garry about it.It is an old auger from a combine with a cut up disk on the bottom. Attached to a very leaky pump. It takes about 1-2 liters of oil per hole so we attach the hydraulics to the old Belarus and are using up some of our used motor oil.