8 Holes Are Planted!

Yesterday was a great day in DDGC history -- we installed our first pole sleeves. The past few weeks Rob Walker has been working on making some metal pole sleeves and locking tabs and gathering the cement and other supplies we needed. We installed the six sleeves that he made, the one Borderland DG gave us to use as a model, and the one that came with the Innova basket.

Rob met me in the parking lot at 9:30 with his truck loaded with 640 pounds of Quickrete (8 80-lb bags), six 5-gallon jugs of water, the metal sleeves, a wheelbarrow, hoe, and other tools. We transferred some of the weight to my truck, put it in four-wheel drive, and both headed into the woods. We felt like real men, doing manly things with our trucks filled with tools and building supplies.

We started with Hole 5 since it is along the main road and decided to move the basket back a little more into the woods. Shortly after we started Pete Nevius joined us and we quickly planted the pole. Rob and I were pretty happy with how easy things went, especially since neither of us had any cement experience. Rob had asked around and picked up some good hints from Sean Franchi though, so we weren't totally unprepared.

We moved down the road to Hole 15 and moved it slightly to the right. Next was Hole 6, Hole 9, and Hole 14. Pete had to take off, so we stopped for lunch, and relaxed in the parking lot for a bit. Getting up was a bit tough, but Rob and I headed over to do Hole 13, 12, and 11 and finished just as it was getting dark.

We probably used too much cement for each pole, but we figured it was easier to use one bag per hole and not worry about it setting in the wheelbarrow by the time we got to the next hole.

Now I've got to go buy some locks and after that, we'll install the four Borderland baskets and the one Innova basket. It was really hard not putting in a basket yesterday, but we wanted to make sure the cement had set before we tried anything. Hopefully no squirrels or wood nymphs mess with our cement before it dries.

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Pole Planting Day -