The stuff, it (still) owns you

[rebeccmeister]

I had ambitions for the weekend. Not all of them were realized. One was this: I have a one of those two-burner Coleman Duel Fuel stoves, but it has had unidentifiable issues the last two times I've gone to use it. So I did what one does and poked around online to look for instructions on how to take one apart and clean it.

On Saturday, I cleaned out the generator, and it seemed like the pump assembly is doing just fine with respect to generating and maintaining pressure. After all that failed to resolve the problem, on Sunday I also pulled off the manifold, soaked it in soapy water for a while, rinsed, and then left it out to dry.

I hope it works when I get to test it again this evening.

Also, a question: I got a pair of 10-foot wooden stakes, which I want to use as tomato supports. Then I learned that the soil into which I want to drive the stakes is very hard and rocky. Do any of you know much about techniques for sinking large wooden stakes into that kind of soil?

Comments

[bluepapercup]

I drive six-foot stakes at work all the time and usually use a pick or my rock hammer to make a starter hole as deep as possible and then drive the stake in with a small sledge after. How much of the stake do you need into the ground? two feet? three feet? At a certain point it may be worth excavating a hole and planting the stake as deep as you want it and then filling the hole back in.

[rebeccmeister]

For these stakes, I think I'll need to put ~2 feet in the ground. Unfortunately, I want to put them in spots where it would be really hard to excavate a hole - but I think randomdreams is onto something with his stake driver...and I think I'll try to come up with something comparable.