Twice the Re-Bar

There are some very frustrating activities in the world. One of them is pounding re-bar into the ground of what used to be pineland elevated a few feet above marshland, where there is a sheet of limestone about 4 inches below the soil surface.

That is what we are doing. What makes it worse is that we are having to do it twice. Two days ago when we began Margie demonstrated how it worked, and we took off with the project. Well, we did not quite get the picture of how tightly they had to be anchored in and we erred on the side of too loose. Also, a few rain showers have come through which have softened the ground and limestone, making some (actually, most) of the already pounded re-bar even looser. We are having to rework practically every line.

We pound in re-bar to make the framework for our trellising of tomatoes and pole beans. The re-bar is 7 feet long, and we actually climb a step ladder and pound on the tops as if they are giant nails. We have a hammer drill, but don't believe it really does much, besides give us a break from hammering with a sledge. So this is what we look like: Jane steadies the very wobbly ladder, Eric climbs the ladder and pounds on the re-bar, which I hold straight and sure, while straddling the 3 foot bed so as not to compress the tilled soil. I also manage the hammer drill and its three extension cords strung from the barn, hoisting it up to Eric when he's tired of hammering. We are a motley crew.

And here is the estimated number of pieces we will pound when it is all said and done: 250. If it takes 10 minutes per re-bar, it will take us over 41 hours.