Yes, we have three simultaneous projects going at once. That is because they are all related in some way and before we do one thing we have to do another and so on and so forth. We pretty much finished the trench but can't take it much further until after the construction trailers have moved out. We removed the front fence in anticipation of the parade of trailers, trucks and heavy equipment about to be driven into the yard.

Even I could drive a trailer through a drive this wide.

After the construction is done, we will finish the drainage trench across the fence line and onto the road. Then 15 tons of gravel will be dumped across the drive from the back of the garage to the front. The final gate across here will be an extra large drive gate that extends the driveway. It sounds ambitious but the worst part is digging that damn trench.

I dug out and saved all the Iris bulbs I possibly could. Some had to be sacrificed though, I ran out of buckets.

Then we decided to take down the fence post on the opposite side of the front yard as well. I think the decision was based on where the shade was at the time but it now means two sides of the yard are open at once.

We are now having to walk the dog on a leash around the yard.

Over the weekend, FM and I put up another corner post (aka: railroad tie). I've decided these railroad ties are closer to  200 lbs because even with two of us lifting one end, it takes everything you've got to get them off the ground. But before we could lift the new one into place, we had to remove the old wobbly one that was already there. No problem, right? After all, if it's too wobbly to hold the fence tight and it's considerably smaller than the railroad ties, it should pull right out of the ground. How hard could it be? First lesson in fence deconstruction: Everything is harder than it looks.

We dug and chiseled and dug some more all the way around it and drove spikes into the sides and could not lift this thing an inch. Then I devised a brilliant plan (or so I thought) to engage Bad Boy. Oh yeah baby, 4-wheel drive and a tow chain. I would hook that sucker up and rip it out by brute force (or so I thought).

I backed the truck up and hooked up the chain to the fence post.

Then with Fearless Mom standing safely behind the garage with the camera, I put Bad Boy into Four-Low and gassed it. This was as far as it would budge, no matter how much I hit the gas.

Refusing to be conquered by a stinking piece of wood, I persisted. All I did was cause a nasty burning smell and carve four big tire trenches in the middle of the front yard.

I finally resorted to gripping the damn thing in an extreme bear hug and FM and I pulled it out of the ground with our bare hands (and a lot of sweat and frustration).

Buttons was even impressed.

The good news is that it left a gaping hole so we didn't have to dig that much to place the considerably larger railroad tie.

Which we then rolled all the way across the yard using what I call the "Egyptian builders method" - you would be surprised at how well this works.

And before you knew it, we had two of four corner posts set. I think we are getting pretty good at this.

By then it was about 150 degrees outside and we decided to move on to less sweaty pursuits like mowing or something.

We took Bad Boy to pick up railroad ties and concrete block earlier in the week. We tried to do this early before the temp hit triple digits but the sun was still brutal. One of the kids (I'm guessing 18 tops) at the lumber yard got careless and nearly got crushed when a giant stack of about a dozen of them came tumbling down on top of him. He moved pretty fast but not before it almost pinned one of his legs underneath. These things are over 8 feet long and they weigh over 100 lbs a piece. Oh man, that had to hurt! But he got up, limped his way back over the the fallen pile and he and his comrade proceeded to load the truck anyway. Such a trooper!

Needless to say, we did not have that little trooper helping us when we got the load home and had to unload four of them along with 10 concrete blocks ourselves. The ties were a bit of a physical challenge but after that, those concrete blocks felt downright dainty.

Dragging them out of the truck and laying them flat on the ground is one thing, picking them up off the ground and setting them straight into a three foot post hole is another. But I devised a plan using these:

And two of these.

It worked like this - we placed the two round posts on the ground and lifted the railroad tie on top of the posts. Then we rolled them across the posts over to the edge of the hole. Then we used the concrete block to lift it part of the way up, since neither FM or myself were strong enough to do a "clean and jerk" lift of 100+ lbs over our head. Then we used a final burst of "girl power" to stand the tie straight up until it fell into the hole. It worked perfectly!

One up, three more to go!  Not counting the ones we have to set for the pallet shed.