Dig a Hole, Build a Fence, Spending the Weekend Outside
Jul 20th, 2007 by Alex
This weekend is going to be full of manual labor. I’m helping out with home improvements at two separate houses.
Tomorrow I’m helping dig a hole. Not just any hole in the ground like the type that kids create while trying to dig to China while Mom and Dad sit back and enjoy not having to supervise for a few hours, but a hole of specific dimensions. The mathematically unchallenged friends that I have would probably be bored with the simple nature of it, but we’re shooting for an eight foot square hole that is approximately 8-12 inches deep. The whole thing has got to be filled with pea gravel to act as a pad for a hot tub that my buddy decided to buy. There’s some other fine points to be worked out such as the border of cinder blocks that have to be leveled before the fill and the re-running of a 220V line from the other side of the house, but for the most part it’s a lot of dirt to move by hand and I suspect that it’ll mostly be a sweaty time working outside. There’s something satisfying about digging a hole.
On Sunday the plan is to help a coworker (and friend, not to marginalize) build a fence in his back yard. Not a lot of detail on this one except that there’s going to be $200 worth of deck screws, power augers and other tools, and some fairly amusing antics. I fully expect some cursing, minor bodily injury, and someone to end up in the pool either during or afterwards.
I have no other plans this weekend. None. I really should put in a few hours on the office project, but so long as I’m doing something instead of dicking around I’m perfectly content putting things on hold another few days. I’m really looking forward to all of this. I like being outside even if I’m sweating my ass off.
I’m weird, I like manual labor.
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[...] Over the weekend I experienced slacklining for the first time. It isn’t particularly new among the climbing community, but I just found out about it recently. While a friend and I were unloading a few tons of pea gravel into a hole I was trying to explain it to him. It turns out he had all of the necessary supplies in his climbing bag. After we were done unloading we setup a small twelve foot slackline between two trees in his yard. We used 3/4″ webbing (a bit thinner than normal) and a mechanical advantage as described by this hilarious hippy dude. At first your balance is horrible and your legs spasm uncontrollably. You need help mounting the line and a hand to prevent falling. You fall a few seconds after getting up but then you just get up again and try again. Your legs firm up pretty quickly and soon you’re balancing for 30-40 seconds. Then you are mounting the line by yourself. Then you take a step or two. We were both amazed at our progression over the course of 20-30 minutes. [...]