Dang Murphy

Who was this Murphy character really? You know, the guy who passed that silly law, and then gave his name to it as well.

We are in the process of building a timber palisade fence around a proposed veggie garden. The “foundation” of any fence is the “posts”, the poles that keep it in place and prevents it from falling over.

Because of the type of ground we have, we have elected to fill the post holes with a collar of concrete as well. Also because everyone else has recommended that we do it.

The curing process of concrete is dependent on many factors, which I will not to try to explain with my very limited knowledge of the part of hydration chemistry, but water certainly plays on important part.

On Saturday and Sunday we poured concrete into prepared pole holes where we had carefully measured, positioned and levelled the measured and cut posts. And what happened but a few hours after, guess what?… Yes, Murphy happened. Murphy’s Law.

In the next 24 hours, we had 59mm of rain with the temperature in the very low teens, like eleven degrees at its hottest. Then the next 24 hours have brought another 15mm. (These figures are measured on our rain gauge and are therefore very accurate.)

The posts concerned are planted along a contour along which the water overflow from the rainwater tank farm flows. And, boy,did it flow along that route, because all the tanks were already overflowing. All 12,500 litres of it… The posts with brand new concrete socks stood knee-deep in water…

Now, we’re holding thumbs checking the on-going rigidity strength of the posts as the stuff cures over the next few weeks, hopefully checking…