Well, I got a fair bit done, and some reading, and learned a bit about Puppet, too! I also got the fence sealed:

Left Side

Right side

They’re coated in Olympic Maximum stain/sealer, “Natural Cedar Tone.” From this vantage, it looks a bit like spray-on suntan, but I’m sure it’ll weather in well. I’ll probably recoat in the spring.

There’s more of course. I finished reading The Hydrogen Sonata. I wish Banks were with us still – there are plenty more tales in Culture Space. I also got through John Arundel’s Puppet 3 Beginner’s Guide. I’ve been wanting to get into Configuration Management for a long time, and haven’t had the cycles to address the issue. Very cool stuff. Overall, a good week. I’ll be doing another one, starting next Saturday, after a “3-on, 1-off, 1-on” work week. Then it’s the death-march to the end of the year, with a brand new project and short timeline deliverables attendant thereupon.

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Our condolences to the family and friends of Staff Sgt. Alex A. Viola, 29, of Keller, Texas, who died Nov. 17, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his unit was attacked with an improvised explosive device while on dismounted patrol.

I’m burning off a couple of weeks of leave between now and the end of the year. As usual in such times, I start one of those weeks off with a stint of physical labor to kick off the front end.  Yup, it’s time to finish up the fence. Last month I did the left fence sections. Yesterday, I started by cutting the fence sections away from the posts, and setting them aside nearby:

Starting more fence work

The two free-standing posts are problematic. One of them has a 45° twist in it, the other has a serious lean. So they’re coming out. How difficult that’s going to be is a crap shoot. Doing fence sections at the bottom of the yard a few years ago, I had rotting posts set into concrete, and it was a long painful process clearing out the debris. These two? No concrete at all. A bit of waggling, then I screwed a crossbar to each and lifted them clear of the ground:

Post removed in a single lift

That was followed by stringing a mason’s line from the two end posts, measuring to the place on the line where each new post goes, and using a plumb bob to locate the center of the new holes in the ground. A long, slightly exhausting stint with the post hole digger (pictured above) netted me two 14″ diameter holes, each 42 inches deep. I poured a couple of inches of crusher rock in the bottom of each hole for drainage, and placed, measured, cut, and replaced the posts. After plumbing and securing the posts, more rock went in to secure the bottoms of the posts, then a sack of mixed concrete each for longer term stability:

Posts in place, with concrete.

By this time, the light was starting to fade, but I got all of the 2×4 rails (aka stringers) installed before the day was gone, and then moved the old fence sections back roughly into place and screwed them in to close off the yard for the night.

This morning, after shopping, I hauled the compressor out, and attached all of the pickets. I then marked and cut the arches in the three sections:

Right front fence section nearly done

What’s left is to pressure wash the old front facing components, let everything dry for a couple of weeks, then apply a cedar natural tone stain/sealer. But the difficult parts of this job are now done.

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Our condolences to the family and friends of Staff Sgt. Richard L. Vazquez, 28, of Seguin, Texas, who died Nov. 13, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his unit was attacked with an improvised explosive device while on dismounted patrol in Panjwai, Afghanistan.