Fencing the Fences

      Or maybe I should title this "Dancing With Termites, Mold and Rot."  I have now spent part of the last two weekends working on the fence around Roseholme Cottage's back yard (and clearing away underbrush on the fencelines, too).

     The long fences along the property lines belong to my neighbors, one of whom knows it.  But the short runs that connect those fences to the house and garage, each one with a gate, are mine and they're in sad shape.  Over the last two weekends, I have hammered in reinforcing bars for two two wobbly posts in the stretch that has the gate we use most and it's stable enough to last another year.  Maybe two.*  Today, I trimmed the bottom of the gate where it was scraping the sidewalk, and reset the latch and padlock hasp.

     Then it was off to the big gate in the back fence.  The gateposts are massive; I replaced on last year, and the other one is a 6"x6" and still solid.  But it's got a tiny bit of fence hanging off it, 15" to a 4"x4" post and the post has an airgap at ground level.

     Or it did.  When I realized what was going on, I looked around and found they make yard-long tapering spikes, with a socket at the top for a 4"x$'.  I bought on spike and a pressure-treated post, and proceeded to hammer the thing in where the old post had stood, and it ended up far more solid than I expected.  The company that makes the spikes warns you to not expect too much, but once I replaced the 2"x4" cross ties near the top and bottom, linking it to the gatepost, it was very stable.  I screwed the old fence boards in places and it looks as good as it every did -- only it doesn't sway.

     With all that accomplished, I reset the latch and hasp on one more gate, and refastened more crosspieces and boards that had come loose over the winter. 

     It was hours of work, but the fence and gates are in better shape now.  In celebration, I aired up the tires on my highwheel bicycle, got it out, and...  I can't mount it.  My knees have been bothering me for some time, and I'd about worn myself out with the outdoor work.  I just couldn't get it up to speed and make the big push to get in the saddle.  I aired up the mini-highwheel instead, and give it a quick run up and down the alley.  Clearly, I have some conventional bicycling and honest exercise ahead of me before I can climb up on the big 36" wheel and go for a ride.
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* I have two different versions of these in place and they're clever, four-foot-long steel bars that you hammer in between the wobbly post and the concrete or packed earth it's set in.  You end up with a bit more than a foot of it exposed, which has a zigzag pattern of holes for long screws to hold it to the post.  Set them on three sides, and unless there's nothing but mud under the post, it's pretty steady.  It's not as good as digging everything out and starting over, but it's much better than the other fixes I have tried.