The 3 O'clock Coffee

After a morning of hard work trimming down several palm trees, and fixing the fence and gate post at the finca's entrance, there is nothing like a hot, sweet 3 o'clock coffee.

We arrived this morning with many plans and projects in mind, besides fixing the gate. But after I began to dig out the old broken fence post I realized I was in over my head. The post was cemented at least 2 feet deep in very hard wet clay that does not break easy and I did not have the right tools to do it. As a matter of fact I didn't even find the pick in order to dig down, but while looking for it I only found the iron part. 

After trying to use by hand and found it to be a futile effort, it occurred to me that the palms that I cut down were so hard that they sounded like baseball bats when they hit the ground, so "a la McGuiver", I decided to create my own handle for the pick, and guess what, it worked like a charm. 

I have to say, I dare anyone to use this pick without gloves; your hands will be torn after you are done. 

As I was trying to break the concrete of the old post, the closest neighbor showed up to see what was the noise he was hearing, since the house is supposed to be empty. Before I knew it he grabbed the pick and started going to town with the concrete, only to be convinced that it was an impossible mission. So after some discussion we decided to leave the old base of the post in and insert the new pipe inside the old pipe, and sink the the old pipe besidev the new pipe to fill the gap. 

Although not a perfect solution, it worked, and thank God for Leonardo the neighbor and his help. Otherwise I would probably be still digging out the old post. For the rest of the projects planned for the afternoon, it was a bust, I'm now so tired it's not even funny, and not even the 3 o'clock coffee will revive me.