September 6, 2005

We bought a manual post-hole drill and gave that a try... for about 15 minutes. WOW. This old gray mare ain't what she used to be! I only made it about 5 turns! The ground is clay, hard-pan, never tilled at all so it is VERY hard to say the least. We gave up and rented a motorized drill this morning. Shawn and Austin drilled all 15 holes in about 3 hours. That's pretty good time! So now the post holes are dug, posts sticking in them and ready to be leveled and tamped in place. We are debating whether or not to use the electronic level thing-a-ma-jigger that John (our brother-in-law) has or to do it the "old fashioned way". Seeing as how the latter isn't all it's cracked up to be sometimes, we might wait for the weekend when he can help us with the leveling. He says he can do in 2 minutes what it would take us 2 hours to do. I believe it. :)

I have a picture of them drilling... they looked so cute out there, sweating, working together. I pray this was the first of many such mornings that they will spend together working the land. Austin said that he can't believe he is going to know how to build a house of his own some day. And that Dad will help him do it. :) The boys and Shawn made great time - they really did. Austin and Shawn ran the digger and Abby and Joshua dug out the loose dirt from the bottom of the holes. Then they hauled the posts over to the holes (they really honestly begged to do this - we weren’t slave-driving them!) and put them in.

I’m embarrassed to say that I did very little other than snap pictures and keep Luke within eye sight. I helped haul a few logs but mostly I offered encouragement and sat down and knit between holes. Not that I dug any or anything (Shawn wouldn’t let me try) but I would walk over after each one and smile and nod, offering a drink of cold water, fixing up a make-shift canopy for some shade... stuff like that. I did get to be the one to set in the four corner posts. I “YIPPEEEEEE’d” at the top of my lungs let, me tell you, when that was done! :) That’s right neighbors, Mr. & Mrs. Nut have officially moved in!

Everyone worked together so wonderfully. I had my doubts. I mean really... this whole thing sounds great in my mind but how is it going to work in real life? If today is any indication then it is going to be just a good if not better than I imagined it.