We set our first pole today.  We cut young eucalyptus trees in the forest and tied them to the post with strips of old tires to hold the post vertical.  The two young men helping are Derick and Mordecai.



Normally cement, sand, and gravel are just dumped on the ground and mixed with a shovel.  That ends up with grass and dirt mixed in the concrete.  Jim had a mud boat made for mixing our concrete.



The cement, sand, and ballast (gravel) are measured using a karia - the pan that looks like a wok.  The karias are also used to carry the concrete to the post hole.



The hole is 18" in diameter and is 5 feet from bottom of hole to top of black plastic tube.  It took a lot longer to mix the concrete and fill the hole than expected.  We started setting the pole at 8:30 and finished filling the hole around 3:00, just before the rain came.