Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

On Mar 3, 2008, at 6:26 AM, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:

> Someone had mentioned post hole diggers and spud.  My 'Doughnut of  
> Death'
> project has required 40 post holes.  By eschewing a tractor or gas  
> powered
> digger, of course, I wasn't keen on doing them all in a day.  But  
> every time I was
> in the garden, I dug two or three an soon the job's done without the
> encumberance and expense of a seldom used expensive tool.

For the record, I have no resistance to anyone doing anything and  
everything using only hand tools.

On the matter of fence posts: On the Wisconsin farm and for many years  
at Heartwood I used only wood posts. Alas, TMEN has removed the photos  
of the chicken moat that show the wood posts and elegant corner  
bracing on that project. But after all the work of building fence and  
after then living more than a few years, I found that despite using  
cedar and various oak, posts eventually rotted. So now, except for  
gate posts, I use only metal T-posts. They go in easy. They don't rot.  
And they can easily be reused.