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May 22, 2005
Gate Complete!
Happy birthday to me... happy birthday to me...
Up early again today - awoke with happy thoughts of finally putting up some deer netting. Got out to the vineyard and grabbed two rolls of netting from the shack. Unrolled the first and stood it up against the impact wires. Obviously it has a tendency to just flop over, so you have to get the first end nailed to a post, then the other end (which is still partially wrapped around a tube) gets attached to two ratchet straps. Then the ratchet straps go around another post and are tightened so that the netting becomes taut and assumes a somewhat vertical shape resting against the impact wires. Check out how tall the fence is.
Since the vineyard has lots of hills and dips, it took a couple tries to get the netting to line up properly with the wires and posts, but once I got it aligned, the next step is to secure it to the impact wires with hog rings. And here is where the train ran off the tracks...
The hog ring tool that I bought was made of plastic, and in my experience any tool made of plastic is by definition "consumer grade" which means it has no business in my ummm, "delicate" hands. I believe the quality of a tool is directly proportional to its weight. So I load this piece of shit with the hog rings, then squeeze the handle and install the first ring. Then on the second attempt the tool jams. ?????? Irritating. So I have to dig out the staple from the tool, then try again. It jams. !!!!! Very irritating. Mind you I've estimated I'll have to install somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 hog rings on this fence. So I continue this saga of install/jam/jam/install/jam/jam for about 20 minutes during which time I get about 8' of fence installed. Very very very irritated now.
So I remove the staples just to see if maybe there is something causing this piece of shit to jam up, but everything appears functional. So one more try and JAM. So now I'm pissed and squeeze the handle really hard and wouldn't you know it the plastic handle just breaks off. That's it - caveman time. Returning to the ways of my neanderthal ancestors, I take the tool and throw it against a post where it explodes into a dozen pieces. Then I pick up the hammer and continue to bash each piece to dust. Then I threw the hammer against the bushhog where it then ricocheted into the tall grass to disappear.
Luckily the company that I bought the tool from was closed so I wasn't able to drive up there to discuss my displeasure. So I went over to Tractor Supply in Leesburg - no hog ringer. Then to Home Depot - "you need a what???" Nevermind. OK so no more netting is getting installed today. Time to head to the shack for a nap.
So after a two-hour nap to mitigate my disposition, I resolved to regroup and make something productive happen. Thus I decided to finish the installation of the gate. This went really well, and after about 2 1/2 hours I had the gate complete.
Posted by Stephen at May 22, 2005 10:23 PM
