Closing the gate on the 2011 season at Turtle Falls

What country property worth its salt is without a gate at the entrance? A gate, for our situation, is most helpful at keeping out the curious waterfront property seekers. The "SOLD" sign certainly doesn't deter these people. It amazes me to no end how people will drive up just at the moment you've stripped off all your clothes to enjoy an outdoor shower with Mother Nature. The other 23 hours and 55 minutes of the day when fully clothed...no curious property seekers. Stinkin' damn Murphy!

The lack of tool selection at Turtle Falls makes for some very odd choices when it's time to tackle certain tasks. Take digging post holes for the gate, for instance. I decided to attempt to dig the two holes for the gate posts. If I hit rock, which is very likely on this land, then we would make a call to the LoEG and have the holes dug by machine. I had to try, at least.

Digging post holes with a pry bar and extracting the dirt with a pickle jar...definitely not the speediest way to dig a hole.

The shovel worked well for the first foot of the needed 3ft depth, but then it loses its usefulness because of the narrowness of the hole. Then I changed to a borrowed post hole digger and that didn't work because the dirt would completely fall out of the thing before I could lift it out of the hole. Hmm...now what? I have an old, borrowed, and extremely heavy pry bar that did the trick of breaking up the dense clay very nicely. But then the only thing I could find to get the dirt out of the hole was a pickle jar....didn't need to borrow the pickle jar. You read that right, I dug two 3ft deep holes with a pry bar and a pickle jar. Worked like a charm!

 Ras mixes concrete for the post holes near the water supply. The gate installed and the 3 tools that got the job done.

Setting the posts in concrete and installing the gate itself were easy by comparison. Here's hoping our efforts will make for outdoors showers with a whole lot more privacy from now on, although we will have to wait til next season to find out. This is, sadly, our last project for the season. Priscilla has been given the winterizing treatment and the new gate will stand guard now until the ice is off the lake in the spring. The winter months will be spent learning about passive solar design, solar panels and energy efficient appliances. I can only hope time flies as fast over the winter as it did this summer.

By the way, the Turtle Falls moniker found favour with 77% of voters in last months naming poll. Thanks to all the readers for helping us choose the name. Click here to read about how the name Turtle Falls came about.

Cheers,
Mimi