Saturday, October 13, 2007

Shelter is done

Shaunn and I got the rest of the shelter put up. I had a couple of minor setbacks...

The anchor that broke the camel's back -
you can see it was starting to bend from
the effort


The anchors for the shelter are apparently meant to be installed by professional wrestlers. They are 30" long, and have an auger tip, so you're supposed to screw them into the ground. Doesn't sound bad, right? So I grabbed the largest screwdriver I could find to use for a handle and got going.
The first couple went in all right, but it takes about 30 minutes of turning, turning turning to get them in the ground. By the time I got to the third anchor, I was spent. After an hour, I'd only managed to get it about 6" into the ground. There were 8 of them in all. At this rate, I'd be lucky to be done by thanksgiving.

So I switched to plan B, went to the hardware store for some steel stakes, and hammered them down. This cut the time and effort by a factor of about 100.

After that, Shaunn helped me pull the cover on, which secured with a few brackets and bungee cords. And now, it's finished. I'm going to lie down.

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