There should a Farming 101 course or a Dummy’s Guide to Farming.  We sure could do with this since neither of us grew up on farms.  Now, this is a funny story that happened this week…which makes me wish that we had farming classes at school that taught you the basics…like how to pull a wooden post out of a 3 foot hole without doing your back in.

Gnome is currently working on building a back veranda and needs to erect 8 sturdy rose-wood posts, 10 feet tall, 3 feet into the ground.  He’s dug the holes (oooh, that started the sore back) and now he has to re-locate posts into this new area.  Now, these posts have been used for different things around the farm and need to be dug out of their holes.  The posts are about 200kgs (400lbs) in weight so it’s no joke!  I saw Gnome perform the heroics of removing one post (ooooooh…sore, sore back!!) and I promptly told him to stop before he did any silly damage to himself.

So we decided to take a break (cup of tea and a Kit-Kat) and do a Google search on “how to lift posts out of holes.”

Something called a “Farm Jack” came up.  We both looked at the description and it suddenly dawned us that this was the exact piece of invention that we were looking for!  Where had it been in all these 13 years of farming when we were painstakingly trying to dig posts out of holes…

And then we realised that there was a piece of equipment that looked exactly like a farm jack lying rotten and neglected, dying a horrible death under our house.  It had been left as a “can you keep this I’ll be back in 2 weeks” piece of equipment which we have now kept for 10 years waiting for this guy to come back who will never come back.

We both looked at each other and said at the same time,

“Oh we have a farm jack!!  Is that what it is! “

All those years of keeping that piece of equipment and having no idea what it was!!  Too Funny, right?  Or should we just feel very silly and sheepish…

Anyway, Gnome took the hunk of metal junk out and with a pair of pliers, some diesel and a wire brush proceeded to clean it up.  Upon closer scrutinisation, the original two pins had been replaced, in a haphazard way, with a nail at the top and a half broken screw at the bottom.  Gnome attempted to “fix” the farm jack and with some magic and a piece of wire with a metal key-holder managed to get the thing working.  It wasn’t perfect since the bottom pin was broken so he used a wire to lever the pin back and forth.  It worked…it actually worked…well, we got a post an inch out of the hole before the make-shift lower pin gave way and broke.  Arrrghhhh!!!  It was looking so promising.

Well, it’s not fixable now and the broken pin is stuck so can not be removed and replaced.  It is such a shame because if it wasn’t for that, it would work!

Now to look for a farm jack in Belize.  Not easy.  We tried looking for one in Toledo, Belize and the likes of it has never been seen or heard of before in this district.  We must search further afield…

Work has temporarily come to a standstill on our farm due to a  sore back and difficulty procuring equipment.  🙂