A Better Day

So the cement held on the pvc pipe repair.  And I pulled on it hard.  Good.  Now I just have to straighten and reinstall 2 others.

I plan to add more supports so that (hopefully) this doesn't happen again.  As best I can guess, enogh leaves fell on the chicken wire covering that the large snowflakes that fell didn't fall through it and accumulated enough weight to bend even the metal pipes in the pvc pipes.  I'll have to be careful about that in the future.

I built the structure with metal pipe inside pvc pipe because there were some complicated connections and metal pipes didn't offer those and pvc pipes did.

I still have some pipes to straighten.  But now that I've done the worst-bent one, the rest should be a BIT easier.  Not "easy" but "easier".  Part of the problem with the first one was that the temperature outside was close to the minimum 45F that the cement cures at rapidly.  The next couple days are supposed to reach the 70F mark (yay Spring) so I can do better with the other bent pipes.

So of course I wasn't sitting around just waiting for the temperature to rise.  I had planned for the brambles in the back 1/4th of the yard to be gone in Fall 2017, but the one guy I found who said he could do that THEN ended up in the hospital from a job injury (and decided to retire).  I did it myself last Fall (really brambly awkward work).  But I did it.

I had to do it.  I had 5 saplings to plant that I bought in Fall 2017 and had set in my garden "temporarily", LOL!  I went out to dig holes for them in Winter and it was like digging a hole in ice.  So I moved 4 of them Tuesday.  At least I could dig the soil.  I transplanted them carefully.  I LOVE my solid steel spade!  I sharpened the edge and it cuts through all soil and vine roots well. 

Today, I took 4 kitty litter buckets (I save them) and drilled a tiny hole in the bottom of each.  Why?  Well, when I fill them from the hose, they drip water slowly into the soil.  It soaks in rather than run off that way.  And I don't have to stand around 30 minutes soaking the area.  Plus, the buckets remind me where the saplings are so I won't mistake them for the junk saplings that spring up on their own.

More to do in the days to come of course, but that was a good start!