Well this item is not technically related to preparation for the trip, but I have been working on this since January and couldn't see taking off with it unfinished.
We had a big storm pass through in January and it blew down about 50 linear feet of the 300-400 linear feet of fence around my property. The part that blew down was originally constructed by a commercial fence company I hired. I really can't complain too much about the durability of that fence since it lasted about 20 years. However, I also note that other parts of the fence that were constructed by myself with a great deal of help from friends is still standing and in quite good shape considering its age.
I actually began the job of rebuilding the fence back in January, but I was just out of the hospital after my double-bypass and didn' t have much stamina. I could only work for an hour or two at a time in the beginning, so you can imagine how slow progress was. I was also trying to work out for an hour each day at the gym as recommended by my cardiologist.
After a month or so of pretty slow progress, I started to get stronger and able to work for 3-4 hours a day on the fence. As I cleared away the old fence and analyzed what needed to be done, I found that the fence panels which were made from cedar planks were still in good condition even after 20 years exposure to weather. A number of fence posts, however, had rotted off at ground level and when the big wind blew in January, about 6 panels of the fence simply laid down on the ground. I also discovered that the implementation of the original fence was very poorly done. It was put together with staples fired from a air pressure gun and could not be disassembled without absolutely destroying the wood, even though the wood was in pretty good shape.
Here's where I crossed the line between simply repairing the fence and completely re-engineering it. In my opinion, there will be more fence posts rotting off at the ground level in the future, so I really want to be able to disassemble the panels between the posts in order to replace the posts only. I devised a method to hang the assembled panels between the fence posts with metal brackets screwed (not nailed) into the posts. The new posts are pressure treated 4x4s and are set in concrete. The panels are also screwed together (not stapled) so they can be disassembled to replace broken or rotted planks.
A note about digging post holes in SoCal. The holes need to be about 1 foot in diameter and 2.5 feet deep. Ten minutes of back breaking work with a rock bar (steel bar about 6 feet long and weighing about 30 pounds) will produce about 2-3 hands full of loose dirt, provided you don't encounter a big rock. Then 30 seconds to scoop this loose dirt out of the hole, then back to the rock bar for another 10 minutes. In the beginning, it took me 2-3 days to finish setting one post in the hour or so each day that I was able to work.
After I replaced all the posts and panels that had fallen down in the storm, I looked at the result and was very dissatisfied. Here is where I crossed the line between doing a good job and being anal retentive. I wound up tearing down about 150 linear feet of old fence and completely replacing it.
Anyway, with a lot of help from son Jesse, I completely finished rebuilding the fence last month and the last step is to paint it which will happen tomorrow. I am hiring that done rather than doing it myself.
Looks solid. But you know, I'm looking at pic #2 and I realize that your back yard is much bigger than I thought.
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