In a way, I'm kind of like this at my job, too. Kind of.
Our fence fell down in December. We arrived home from our vacation in Cuba to find that two panels from our backyard fence had toppled into our neighbours to the south's (literally), behind our house. At the time, there wasn't much snow on the ground and the fence landed in a bare spot of lawn that was largely protected by an evergreen in our neighbour's backyard, but being December, snow was immanent.
"I'm not going to worry about it until the spring," I told DW, "and besides, it looks like our neighbours are away, anyway."
As it had turned out, those neighbours had actually moved and the new owner hadn't yet moved in. And as we later found out, at the end of December and into January, the owner spent the first few weeks renovating the interior and hadn't even noticed the gap in the backyard fence.
DW and I also discovered, in late March, after the snow had melted, that the occupants of the home behind us were actually renting, that the owner/landlord lived in Toronto. We discovered this when the tenant left us a note on our door, wanting to reach out about fixing the fence. He left his contact info and the contact deets about his landlord.
The landlord agreed to share in the cost of repair but he had no idea about who to contact in Ottawa about doing the work. I told him that I'd look into it and let him know when I had a couple of quotes.
I couldn't find anybody who was available to do the work or find anyone who was willing to do such a small project (they'd want an arm and a leg, and still it was too little to make it worth their while).
DW and I decided that we would do the work.
But the weather was getting nice and we'd want to spend our weekends out in our kayaks, or visiting friends, or working on other projects.
When the derecho hit Ottawa, in May, we were surprised that more of the fence wasn't taken down, but what remained actually held in place. But it was still a couple of weeks after that storm (the beginning of June, actually) that we actually decided to start work.
Reaching the concrete was traumatic for me, and I gave up. I had other projects that required my attention and summer weekends were made for getting out and enjoying life. Instead, DW and I would think of new strategies.
A friend had a handyman, who was willing to take a look at the work, but didn't have the ability to pull the old post stumps, nor was he able to drill new holes. He gave us other contacts but no one was available.
June passed. July came and went, as did August. But boy, did DW and I enjoy our weekends.
At the office, I can also be good at procrastinating. Because we work in an Agile environment, we break our project into two-week sprints, where we plan out required tasks and agree to have those tasks done within the sprint. I've never missed a deadline but I can waste time at the beginning of a sprint. I pick up steam as the two weeks comes to a close.
The problem with the fence was that I didn't have a deadline. I didn't break the required tasks into easily manageable chunks. But there was a deadline that eventually became imposed upon DW and me.
Our neighbour to the south was extremely patient and never said a word. His giant evergreen did provide a lot of privacy from our backyard so DW and I could never see him when he was out there. But we did not want to get into autumn without fixing the fence, and as our vacation to Portugal loomed closer, we didn't want to leave that gap.
On the first September weekend—a long weekend—I decided that it was time to get serious about the fence. DW and I were going to get those posts out of the ground, no matter what.
I started with digging the hole to the first post a bit wider, so that I could get around the edge of the concrete. My folks also loaned me a long, heavy iron bar that had a chisel-like point on the end. I would raise the bar up high and let gravity do the work.
It cracked the concrete and I was able to pull out shards, almost like pulling teeth. It was a slow, heavy, and tiring task but it seemed to be working. At one point, we could feel the wooden post move a little, so we wrapped a heavy-duty chain around it, connected the chain to a tall jack, and, like a stubborn tooth, pulled it out from the surrounding concrete.
We were able to fit a new post into the vacant socket, pound it down as deep as it would go, and then used an expanding foam to fill the hole.
One post: done.
The next day, we dug out the ground over the second post stump, which had snapped off much deeper in the ground than the first stump. It was nearly a foot down before we reached the top of it. The clay also seemed more dense in this area, and digging deeper became a slower, more intense process. We went more than two feet through clay before we finally hit the top of the concrete.
Again, I used the rod to try to break up the concrete but the surrounding clay seemed to hold that concrete together. I would only be able to break tiny pieces off the surface, and sometimes, the concrete didn't seem to want to budge.
Also, the post itself was much more deteriorated than the first post stump. I had to be careful not to break it more.
By the end of that day, my back, arms, and shoulders hurt from trying to break up the concrete. I knew I needed something stronger to break up the concrete and one of my Twitter friends suggested that I get my hands on a demolition hammer. But because the next day was the Labour Day Monday, hardware stores were closed.
Our work for that weekend was done.
DW and I awoke early, this Saturday, and made our way to Home Depot. We were able to get our hands on a small but powerful demolition hammer but we were concerned that the bit might not reach to the bottom of our hole.
Luckily, it did, though the handles for the hammer were at ground level. I had to go down on my knees and bend down to operate it.
It wasn't easy. I'd manage to break some concrete but then the bit would hit clay, and it was all that I could do to pull the hammer out of the hole. I'd have to rock it from side to side and then heave with all my might.
After about 20 minutes, I was thoroughly exhausted. I had to get DW to help me lift the demolition hammer out of the hole, and I'd have to catch my breath while she scooped out the broken bits of concrete.
When I could no longer get the hammer any deeper into the hole, we had to make a decision: try pulling the post out of the concrete or widen the hole enough so that the hammer would fit below ground level.
We tried pulling the post out, first. My heart sank as the post began crumbling as we cranked the jack and I feared that we were making matters worse, and just as I was about to stop the jack, the post slipped out of the concrete sleeve.
The post also broke into hundreds of little pieces as we brought it to ground level.
We banged the new post into place, filled the hole with the expanding foam, and jumped for joy.
We spent the rest of Saturday disassembling the old fence panels, salvaging boards that were still in good shape, and taking inventory of what we needed to replace. We also had to disassemble the panel that had not toppled but had been attached to one of the posts that did topple. By the end of Saturday, that panel had been rebuilt and was in place.
I had wanted to go for a bike ride on Sunday morning. The weather was excellent and I was hoping to do a long ride, out to Oxford Mills and back. But my back was sore from the work we had done on Saturday, and I told myself that that 100-kilometre ride would have to wait until October, after our vacation.
We were on a roll with the fence and couldn't stop. We had a deadline that was looming fast. We had procrastinated for long enough. It was time to pick up steam.
As we reassembled the two fallen panels, we discovered that some of the slats that we thought were good were actually in worse shape than we had first assessed, and another trip to Home Depot was required. Our backyard neighbour came out to check on the progress and was impressed with our work.
But because he was a tenant, he didn't particularly feel a need to help (he didn't say that but he didn't offer to help, and in a way, I don't really blame him).
By dinnertime, the fence was done. DW and I even replaced post caps and top two-by-fours on parts of the fence that remained in place but were showing definite signs of deterioration. We shored up gaps under the fence so that critters couldn't get in, but mostly so that our 'outdoor cat,' Camille, could go outside again.
She was so happy to be back out in fresh air for the first time since December.
Yes, we procrastinate. We are the quintessential procrastinators. But when we give ourselves deadlines, boy, we meet them.
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