growin' on "down" the line

Well, got some things done around the house and have been unable to share since we haven't had internet all week. We have it now, for how long ...  who knows?

Anyhooooo .... the weather finally cooperated enough this week where there was a 48 hour break of *no* rain AND no *wind*. For three weeks now, that has NOT happened once and I have been reluctant to concrete my poles in the ground if there was wind and/or rain in the forecast. It is imperative the concrete base for these poles cure with the pipe perpendicular to the ground.

So I got the poles in the ground, leveled up, and the concrete cured without issue. That was the easy part.

Okay well digging the holes wasn't. Yeesh rocks and roots really hampered the process and wore my little ass out. I intended to dig 3' deep, but settled with 20" instead because of the aforementioned rock and roots.

Aside from the digging, the -hard- part turned out to be what I had expected to be a "piece of cake".  LoL I had already drilled holes in the 1" and 1/2" pipe so that when extended fully I could bolt them together as seen here ...

It doesn't look it in this picture, but  the top of those poles are about 15' off the ground.

All I had to do now, was pound the stakes into the ground, string the lines, and raise the poles. Easy peasy ... or NOT!

I put the stakes in without a problem. I cut the lines, again without a problem. I should've known that things were going *too* smoothly.

I looped the lines around the cable (that runs between the poles) which was a little taxing since it was 10' high, but that wasn't even too bad. The problem came when I went to raise the poles and slip the bolts in.

The first pole went up and I tightened both bolts. The second pole, however, would NOT fully extend. I wrestled and wrestled with it but made no progress.

I called in for reinforcements (luckily, Melissa was home). It turned out that the lines had slid down the cable (the grade of the ground was sloped) and were putting enough stress on it preventing me from raising it.

This was going to have to be re-thought. The whole idea of this system was the simplicity of harvesting. Loosen and remove four bolts, slide the poles down, harvest, and done. If extending the pole was going to require that much fighting, then we need to formulate a plan B here.

I undid the pole at the top of the hill and figured to try it in reverse. BINGO! that's what it takes -- set up the bottom pole and then do the top one. I was glad of this since I didn't really have a plan B -- nor an idea of what it would be.

It's up for now, but still needs some tweaking. As you can see, the distribution of the lines is way out of kilter.

I intend on getting some clamps and clamping the lines in place so they don't slide down the slope of the cable, but in the meantime, the hops got something to train themselves on ...

Grow babies, grow!