OffThePost.org

Ah, nice. I was thinking that was a causeway going out and you could see the riprap side and then some vegetation or something in the distance...

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

My house is trying to kill me.
Last week- whole house filter leaked like hell. I looked up how to fix it, and managed to slow the leak from 2 gallons/day to a trickle, but it's still leaking so I have to replace it. Fuck that guy.

Saturday morning my kids couldn't open the freezer door and when they finally did, found a glacier in the freezer. Turns out the ice maker supply line is just dripping like crazy, even with the ice maker switched off. The valve to kill water supply to the line is one of those old shitty piercing lines that nobody has used in like 20 years, and of course, it doesn't work. So I have to put in a new T with shut off while the water supply is turned off for the whole house filter replacement. And keep changing out the tupperware we have catching the drip in the freezer every few hours. Wife put it too far in last night so the drip shot all over the inside of the freezer, again, so I will have to remove all that excess ice. Again.

Opened the pool and the pool store told us to add x chemicals, plus 2 more bags of shock. Brought another water sample to them like 2 days later and they said the chlorine is off the charts high so we can't run the heater (Which is what I was concerned about and the reason I sent another sample to them). They asked why on Earth we'd add 2 more bags of shock, like I'm an idiot. So I showed them the directions they printed out for me that said to do it. The 16 year old kid asked who in the store had helped me. The owner. I asked if there's anything I can do to reduce chlorine and they said to let it air out (fine I don't have a cover), and "turning on the heater will use more chlorine". I said "you said I can't turn on the heater since the chlorine level is so damned high, as it would eat the copper piping inside the heater. That's why I originally came to you guys to test the water". Kid- "uhhh, oh yeah. DON'T turn on the heater!" Thanks bro.

Have to replace an ancient post & rail fence that exists because our dick neighbor cut down trees on our property years ago so their pool wouldn't be shaded. My parents owned the house then and didn't want to sue, so they put up the fence to let the assholes know where the line is. Last week the neighbors came over to ask if they could cut down trees on our side so their pool wouldn't be shaded. I said they could cut the 2 dying ones, but not the three healthy trees. The lady tried to tell me the trees are dying, that's why their bark is falling off. I told her they're shagbark hickories, and not only are they perfectly healthy, they're great homes to bats, which eat mosquitoes. Now she hates those trees because she's scared of bats. The husband came over to add that the fence looks like shit and we should just take it down. I asked if he remembers why the fence is there to begin with and pointed out that he has a shitload of nerve to even mention the fence, let alone complain about it. So I bought new fence materials and started replacing it, like one post/day. 42 posts. It wasn't supposed to be set in concrete according to the company that installed it. It is! Digging these fuckers out is killing me. But they wanted $6k to install. I spent like $2300 on materials. So it's slow going, and fucking annoying as hell. House must have been part of a rock farm. Fucking rocks fill the ground below 4". One after another... What should be a 6" diameter hole ends up being like 18"x24" to get all the damned rocks out of the way. Each one.

And the epoxy floor we had installed 2 years ago is peeling up! Too much humidity beneath it. They'll fix it for free but I have to empty the entire garage so they can find all the fucked up parts.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Yowzer.....we rented a post hole digger for about 30 posts....can't imagine 42...well worth it. Hard to believe all those posts are rotted and you need to dig them all up. I typically go with metal now for posts because they don't rot...and then you don't have to worry about it 6 years on or in the high winds. If you have a rotary hammer tool those are well worth it to break up the concrete. Fencing, although expensive, is one of those backbreaking jobs I no longer do.....much happier paying someone.

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No AI has been used in the making of this post

My buddy's Dad built a stand and pully/jack system to pull out deep ass concrete and steel fence posts. It was amazing.

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Thanks Chuck, E.L. and Harmy!

I've gotten 6 posts done in like 14 days. But that's largely because the last 5 days have been spent on family and fighting the various water hazards in my house.

The fence is like 25 years old. A cedar fence should last around 20. We plan to sell in like 4-6 years after Miss18.2 graduates high school. So it won't be my problem when it rots down the road. And I was told the fence company doesn't use concrete on posts because it causes them to rot faster. Water runs down the post, gets between the post & concrete, then can't get out again, so it just sits there, rotting the wood.


Half my trouble is that I can pull most of the posts right out of the concrete easily, so I end up with a concrete donut in the ground, which is a pain in the ass to get out. I looked into feather and wedge systems for breaking up rocks or concrete, but you can't get into a narrow hole to hammer the wedges in. I made a lever out of a 2x4 with chain bolted to one end, and used a big log as a pivot. For the few that wouldn't come out, picture my fat ass up off the ground, suspended by a 2x4, bouncing on it, with no budge.

I'm just shocked at how many fucking large rocks are in the ground around here. Then again, this used to be actual farmland, and we have shitloads of rock walls, many of which didn't delineate boundary lines, so rocks have obviously been a problem for a long time.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

I think my buddy's Dad drilled a hole in the concrete and sunk a big enough eye screw for the chain hoist to hook onto and pull it out.

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Thanks Chuck, E.L. and Harmy!

My trouble is that I can't get a drill or hammer down into the hole unless I dig the hole crazy wide, which then makes it easy to just dig the concrete out anyway.
Also, I should mention that my new rails are slightly different lengths than my old rails, so the holes don't line up anyway. Maybe like every 10th or 11th hole will be the same. It's been a pain in the ass, and I'm taking time off from that to glare at the pipes in my basement while I wait for parts to show up to fix that.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Yeah that definitely stinks. No easy way of doing it

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Thanks Chuck, E.L. and Harmy!

So often these days, I sit down at the computer with great intent of looking up something that seemed really important a few minutes ago, then go on autopilot and check an Isles site or two, this site, social media, and then I have no idea wtf I sat down to look up that was supposedly important a short time ago.

Who are you?
I'm cold.
French toast please!
It's hot in here.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Oh man, so its not just me!

I was just thinking of this the other day as I have noticed this happening to me a lot more lately.

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Nope. And as I'm on here at 3:45 am, insomnia is in high gear too. Wooooooooooo! Too awake to sleep. Not awake enough to do anything productive.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

I've started to find a bit of joy in a weird place- not quite "gardening" but I've been going around my property pulling weeds and cutting vines. We've got a ton of invasive species around here that are killing off native species, so I'm waging war on them. Tons of Asian bittersweet vine, which climbs and chokes trees. I got a neat hooked blade that works great for getting between the vine and tree and then slicing through the vine. I've avoided all the poison ivy (so far), so that's still growing, but that doesn't usually kill the tree. Just annoys the shit out of people. And I'll eventually start on that after the bittersweet is under control (in other words- never).

I am leaving a bunch of winged Euonymus (aka burning bush) between us and the new neighbors. I hate that crap but it gives some screen between our pool and theirs. They've got a bunch of workers there getting the place fixed up after like 18 years of being vacant, so my wife and girls don't want to be out back. We paid a shitload to get our pool so I'm not going to have everyone avoiding using it. If some damned invasive species get a stronger hold, oh well. It's a tradeoff I'll take. Kind of pisses me off that these people tore out all the other vegetation between us and them, right up to the property line, but such is life among other humans.

I never thought of myself as being into this, but here we are. Life takes some funny turns.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

I would describe that as gardening. You might want to look into other options for control of the vine. pH balance, nutrients, other plants that could be introduced to out compete the vine. European gardening has historically been about dominance of the environment through hoe, prune, fertilize to achieve a formal, structured, manicured eco system. Gardening is changing, the understanding that there can be a better way if we try and nudge and work with nature instead of hitting it with a cudgel. However with some weeds there is no other way but worth looking into options. I have a rat problem with my tomatoes, have found some possible solutions in my research that rats/mice are dependent on their sense of smell. Companion plants like lavender, onions, garlic, and especially mint will bugger their sense of smell up and they supposedly will stay away. We'll see how it works out.

And a personal pet peeve of mine is the selling of invasive plants. Ivy, bamboo, black berry, morning glory, scottish broom (maybe worst allergy plant out there). This crap should be banned from being sold in North America. We see so much cost created when they escape. Same for lion fish, anaconda's or boa's in Florida etc,. Just end domestic sales of any foreign species that can easily escape and invade our ecology.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

As an environmental scientist/biologist, I despise invasive species, even though they give me job security. I can't tell you 99% of the plants sold in garden nurseries, but if you drop me in the woods or even underwater I can tell you at least 90% of the plants and animals. My approach is to just remove the invasives, and even a few natives that might kill off trees. We had enough Virginia creeper on a pine that I thought it would kill the pine, so I cut all the lower sections of creeper. It's native, but I can't have a white pine, top heavy with VA creeper, falling onto the power lines that go to my house. So bye bye, creeper!

I don't plant too much. At least not yet. I got some wildflower seeds to hopefully cover bald spots in my "lawn". They're almost all native and the non-native ones aren't the type to take over an area. All the native only seed mixes were insanely expensive.

I can't tell you how many non-native species we have around here due to fishing. People transport crayfish to use as bait for hundreds of miles. Most of the species people in NY think are native aren't. They were just brought here a few hundred years ago by colonists. Brown trout for example. If you catch a native brook trout, do a dance, take some pics and let it go to live on. Brown trout are like rats at this point. They're all over.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Its pretty hard to control individuals bringing crayfish from one spot to another. Gov't could however ban stuff that comes from outside, or prevent it from being sold. There would be smugglers for birds, snakes etc but it would be somewhat more controlled.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

Ooooohhh man do I love doing yardwork. Well, "love" might be a strong word. But I bought myself a Fiskars billhook a few years back and that thing rocks when it comes to clearing unwanted plants. We get these stupid weed trees everywhere and they get too thick to just pull out or prune, and I can't always hack them with the hook blade so it's nice that this one has a serrated edge on the opposite side so I can saw things.

https://www.acehardware.com/departments ... lsrc=aw.ds

Right now I'm cleaning off river rock because the grass keeps growing over it and that's absolutely exhausting. Cut the living shit outta my hands putting together some wire mesh and wood for a makeshift sifter. Probably should've just bitten the bullet and bought one.

Word of advice: Never plant lemon balm in anything other than a pot. We put that in our garden years ago and it's the most noxious weed I've ever encountered (smells nice though). People kept warning us about Lamb's Ear but what we planted got snuffed out by other ground cover plants we found in no time. The lemon balm just fucking grows everywhere, the only plant I could see being worse is bamboo.

Ha, I knew a guy who planted bamboo along his boundary line (after several of us told him not to). Of course, it grew into his neighbor's yard and the roots broke pool plumbing, tore electrical wiring, etc. Idiot had to pay the neighbor he hated like $20k to have his pool & yard fixed, rip all the bamboo out of the guy's yard, then install a thick metal plate like 2' down in the ground to keep the bamboo from going back into the neighbor's yard. And he didn't rip it out of his own yard after that. Fool.

We've got lots of Japanese knotweed around here. That's a bad one because if you cut it and leave anything on the ground it can re-root. Like a 1" piece of stem can re-root and be a 10' tall plant again. Shit is a pain.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Talking about invasive species, rats! Here is something I doubt you American's who are so deep into Canadiana are aware of. Alberta has no rats, they put an extermination policy in place decades ago, they even have some sort of government emergency response team that investigates and eliminates the population if they get a report.

So invasive species can be brought to heel, but it is a big investment in time and money.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

That's crazy. What other critters fill the niche of eating detritus? Way more mice? Feral cats?

I have always assumed that some species of rats or another made them found globally. I guess Calgary is the lone rat free place. I've seen them in cities (obviously) but also out in the middle of forests and other rural areas.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Yeah, every single online resource warns you to either not plant it in anything other than a pot or if you insist on doing so, plant it in an enclosed box and then burying the box so it stays in one place. Not worth it IMO.

I also made a huge mistake in buying a packet of "wildflowers" to help the pollinators and what not. Now we have these obnoxious weeds that grow poisonous berries and spread all over the goddamn place every year, they're also ugly AF. Stupid decision on my part.

Wife did the research and bought native plants that are helpful to pollinators without being noxious and invasive, like Monarda (bee balm), Borage, and certain types of Milkweed.