Well, I won’t post the pictures just yet. I only have two of the start this morning. Although I worked for over six hours today, I’m not real happy with my progress. It took me all morning to get the first row down as I struggled with the hard ground to make things level. I finally managed to get the first four rows in place before I quit. I originally thought I would need only five rows to get the walls of what is more a retaining bed instead of a raised bed up to the level of the lawn, but, having to dig down to level the first row has cost me some height. I’ll probably need a sixth row to attain the height I want and possibly a seventh for appearance.
I’m glad I’m not trying to do this with stone. I’d need to mine half the hillside to get enough! Besides, the longest and highest wall is to the downhill side away from the yard and house. No one will really see it.
Why did things go considerably slower than anticipated today? There are three primary reasons:
1- I didn’t get much sleep last night. I turned off the light at midnight and woke up at 3 AM. Despite trying to fall back to sleep, I could not and, as a result, I was out of bed at 3:40 AM. The cats were a bit surprised but wanted their breakfast anyway.
2- It was hot again today with the temperature reaching 89 degrees shortly after 5 PM. I worked two three-hour shifts with a three hour siesta (without the sleep) in between. Nine to noon and three to 6:30 PM. Despite drinking three 20 oz. Gatorades, two 20 oz bottles of water and a can of Diet Dr. Pepper with my lunch, I lost 5 pounds of water weight as I went through two soaking wet shirts and a pair of jeans that probably weighed a ton.
3- The freakin’ ground is like concrete! I spend a lot of time with the heavy Johnson bar just trying to loosen it up. I know you can just lift and drop that bar chisel point down to make it do its job, but it weighs 16 pounds. Try lifting that over and over and over again all day long. And when you have loosened the soil, the poor man’s backhoe (shovel) comes into play. Then there’s the stones which are anywhere from nickel –sized to dinner platter sized. And any one of them will turn that 16 pound chisel you’re lifting and dropping and lifting and dropping….. Did I mention there was an old wire fence buried here?
The sides of the box had to be excavated to a depth of upwards of 20 inches. And that was for the four foot sections. If I had gone with eight footers right off the bat, I would have been down closer to thirty inches.
Anyway, there are four courses of timbers out there now. They are held together with six inch pole barn spikes (60p with ring shanks). Each was driven with a five pound hand sledge. Lift up let it fall. Do not try to “drive” the spike. Just guide the hammer head to the top of the spike. Over and over and over again.
Did I mention the sun was shining brightly? The back of my neck is probably as red as a vine ripened tomato. It feels like it anyway.
My legs and arms are cramping up on me like they haven’t done since high school when we had two-a-day practices in late August. I used to wake up screaming in the middle of the night when my calves would tighten up. Of course, back then there was no Gatorade and I was too young to drink beer. Both will replace electrolytes but only the latter will (maybe) help me sleep.
Tomorrow promises to be another scorcher in the upper 80s.
Oh joy.
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