The planets were aligned for Lizzie last weekend.
But first, a little background...
I have had a big vegetable garden for the past five years. In order to keep the critters out of it, I've had a 6-foot high fence made out of netting around it. It has served me well, but it was getting a bit worn and easy for said critters to breach. Also, I was spending some of the precious time I have for working in the garden repairing the fence for the garden. One morning, two large does were breakfasting on my brand new spinaches and lettuces. They were completely non-plussed when I tried to shoo them away. Rather than pulling out the big guns, literally, Hubby offered to help me re-do the fence.
We happened onto a sale on heavy-duty, tall, chicken wire at the local farm store. A neighbor offered to find us tall fence posts. All we needed to do was dig a few holes and pop those posts into them.
A piece of cake.
Yeah, right.
Here are some things to consider (for you non-farm types):
Can we get this project done before the asparagus starts coming up in early April (because, if we can't, the deer are going to have lunch, too.)
Can we get the old steel posts dug up and the netting cleared away so that we can put in the new stuff?
Is the ground thawed enough to dig into?
Is it thawed enough but not too wet to dig into?
Is the neighbor going to bring the posts when the ground is thawed and not too wet?
Can we dig 32 holes in a weekend?
Well, yes!! (to all of it!)
We started by digging holes by hand. After about one and a half holes, Hubby jumped in the truck and went to town to rent an auger for us. (What a guy!)
The gas-powered auger made things a bit easier, but it had to be man-handled (or, at times, woman-handled) and had no self-propulsion or lightness of being to it. :( We did get a system going and managed to bang out the 32 holes. (Our muscles suffered the consequences of this system the next day.)
We say "ni hao maa" here because this hole goes all the way to China. :) Seriously, though, the holes needed to be about 2.5 feet deep.
The ten-foot (plus) hedge poles were delivered about two hours behind schedule (much closer than 98% of the goings on at the farm) and promptly popped into their holes around the garden. Each pole was weighty enough to require two people to carry it, so, it was quite fortuitous that the now mostly-grown neighbor children showed up to help. In addition, daylight savings time had just kicked in so we had an extra hour of daylight to get it all done. We'll wrap the whole thing with the chicken wire next weekend. The hard part is done.
It was warm enough.
It was dry enough.
The auger was available to rent.
We had time to do it all.
The neighbor kids helped out.
The planets were aligned for Lizzie last weekend and she was well pleased!
We may even have more than three beets this year!
