Once upon a time, my neighbor H moved up here intending to raise horses. Among the things she arranged for that make her yard different from yours and mine, she put in a lovely rustic-as-hell hitching post made of rough round poles maybe 18 inches in diameter. Looked strong enough to tether an ox.
Two weeks ago it fell right over. She hadn’t reckoned with something I also learned the hard way: We have termites that seem to be descended from Cthulu. They avoid junipers for some reason, but any dead wood you put into the ground will eventually be found and destroyed. When I was planning the Secret Lair, the first generation of stakes I used were eaten right to the surface.
H has been taking lessons at this rather odd welding class that seems to go on at all times. It seems to be sponsored by the local power plant, which donates quite a bit of expensive materials and also uses the class for recruiting. Some of the materials the plant has donated include extremely thick-walled steel pipe, I presume for handling high-pressure steam. Students at the welding class, having paid a very nominal price for the use of the materials, may find themselves building the damndest things…
Let’s see the little bastards eat through that.
Neighbor L liked the idea so much she wanted one too. Each weighs on the order of 300 pounds, so yesterday afternoon a bunch of us got together to move them off the trailer. D&L haven’t set theirs up yet, but J planted this one this morning – with a little help from Uncle Joel.
Well done.
Nice job on the hitching post.
I would never have thought about termites in the desert, who knew? I guess that one learns something new every day. I wonder what the old timers back a hundred year (plus) ago did to counter them.
I can appreciate the issues with termites and wood, I live in a log home. Where you have a termite issue, up here it’s carpenter ants. Around 6 months after we first moved in the little bastards made their presence known and we had to scramble to get rid of them. Now part of the spring ritual is to have a pest control guy come and spray the exterior of the house.
The photos of your cabin show it made from wood. How do you keep them from eating your home?
The hitching post is georgeous. And free. Well done indeed.
There are ground termites and flying termites. Though our termites are voracious, they never leave the ground and so they’re easy to keep out of the framing. The Lair’s piers are concrete.
Be careful! Subterranean Termites can and do form mud tubes to get over barriers to the good wood. Very common in stick built homes to find tubes over the concrete.
You should check periodically for tubes and scrape them off if any are found.