Patching Troughs and Digging Post Holes

I found something at Wal-Mart . . . called "Water Weld."  It is a small roll of clay-type substance.  You cut off as much as you need (not much) and "mush" it up to mix the ingredients that cause it to harden . . .  and it can then be used to patch just about anything.   In my case, I needed to patch two Rubbermaid Fiberglass Water Troughs that had suffered from my using a pickax this past winter to remove "foot-thick" ice from the sides of the troughs.  Mostly, there were a few small holes, but in one case, I actually cracked the trough when I broke through the ice.

The Water Weld instructions require that the item to be patched be clean and sanded . . . So, I sprayed the areas around the holes with a cleaner for electric equipment . . . and sanded the area around the holes with medium grain sand paper.

Materials for patching

Crack in trough . . .

and a few holes.

Then, I cut off a small part of the Water Weld clay:

I blended it and then, started patching:

It can be smoothed before it dries.

After patching the holes and the crack, I set them in the sun to dry . . . and later that evening, I went back and sanded the dried patches . . .

It Works!

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I also had a few arena fence posts to replace.  I either hit the base of them with the mower platform or with the box scraper whenever I mowed around the arena or combed the sand inside.  I'm not a whiz on the tractor, and a fraction of an inch difference between the width of the loader and the width of the mower or box scraper has foiled my best attempts over the past three years.

So . . . I had three fence posts (actually, landscape timbers) to replace, and they had broken off just below ground level . . . and I wanted to keep the spacing of the posts, so the bottoms of the posts (3-4') needed to be removed from the post holes.

A friend said that he wanted to bring his grandfather's antique, post hole digger over because he had never seen anything dig post holes better . . .
I  was game . . .

Couldn't pull it out with a chain because it was too "punky" and slippery.

Grampa's Antique Post Hole Digger

Another view

So, the digging/drilling began.  Set the digger next to the piece of post and start turning the handle . . .

I was amazed at how efficient this old tool worked when compared with my two-handled "jobbers," which is what I've used for years . . . except when I've used the auger on the tractor.

We were able to get the dirt dug out next to the broken posts so that they could be pulled out.  Now, I can replace the posts and get the arena fence up . . .

and be more careful about mowing or grading near the fence posts.