Ever agree to a job that was just a little more intense than expected? Remember what it took to get it from start to finish within time and within your physical abilities? Well, on July 21 I made the suddenly decision to move forward with an outdoor project for my oldest sister Becky; the removal of her backyard fence. On the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th, I committed myself to pulling out the posts, and removing all of the fence and get back to Onalaska, before my other sister, Kathy and her daughter Jasmine, left Onalaska.

So, How hard can it be to remove an old fence?  See the before images…

 

 

 

The issue I ran into… heat and humidity!  Heat is fine, I do alright with heat, but coupled with humidity is just downright cruel!  One morning it was 97% humidity and 72F before 7:00 am!  Each day I had to change shirts a couple times to get away from the nasty, never-drying, shirts. I had the very exciting task of pulling out the concrete anchored rotten wood posts as well.  The posts were 4 feet deep.  Not wanting to add costs to this project, I decided I would pull them out with just a handyman jack, a drill, two bolts, and 2x4s.  What I did was set two 2x4s together and drill a pair of 5/8″ holes through the pair of 2x4s.  Then I would drill a matching pair of holes into the wood posts and bolt my 2x4s to the post.  The handyman jack would then be placed under the 2x4s and slowly lifted the post out.  Lessons learned here: this works best when you can go straight up! If the jack starts leaning towards the post, you fight the ground around the concrete making it VERY difficult to pull it out.  Next time, it may be a good idea to have two jacks going on each side of the post, or dig around the top portion of the concrete and put a chain around that… OR just get a skid steer or cherry picker and just pull straight up and save the manual labor!

All in all, I was able to pull all the posts… some with concrete, most without…

 

Well, it seems I have ran out of time to write about this.  All in all, according to the dump, I tossed out 4,440 pounds of timber… that’s quite a bit.

Tomorrow I’m heading to Colorado to ride motorcycles through the mountains.  Then after that, the Colorado Trail!

 

But first, some after photos.