Day 2643

 I woke up at 7:30, played games for a while, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  By then it was 9 and ACE was open.  I drove there and bought a bag of Quikcrete.  I was pretty sure the 1.5 bags I had would be enough.

When I got home I mixed up the cement and cemented the first pole.  Ellen helped by making sure it stayed vertical.  Filling the hole took all of the Quikcrete I had.  It also left me hot, tired, and with a sore back.

We went back to ACE and bought another three bags.  We also stopped at Dunkin Donuts to get a donut and a smoothy.  Then it was back home to fill the second hole.  It only took two bags, so I have a spare if I need it.  After that I was hot, tired, and had a sore back again.  We went inside for lunch and some recovery.

I sat for about an hour and then went out to the garage to fabricate an extension to the gate post.  It turned out to be relatively easy to do.  I spent the most time finding screws that would fit.  I took the extension outside and got Ellen to help me install it.  I think it will work fine.  We also put up another string to use as a top marker and did some cleanup.

Ellen went back to the house and I started to mount the gate.  I'd mis-cut the end of one of the sides.  I had to spend some time sanding it down with a disk on a drill.  After that things went pretty smoothly lining things up and installing the hinges.  I had problems with the latch I'd bought from the fence place.  It's a fine latch, but it didn't have hardware or mounting holes.  I had to use the drill press to drill holes and time to find mounting screws.  The result is great.  The gate closes if it's half open and stays open if you open it all the way.  It was almost 5 by the time I got done.

I went back inside and took a shower.  Ellen fixed stir fry for dinner.  After dinner it was videos.

I'm really happy about the progress we made today.  Tomorrow I want to get the wooden gate post straightened and the top rail installed.  I may wait another day before installing the fencing.  If so we'll probably do chicken wire.  All in all things are moving along nicely.  I'm really tired ans sore though.