Had a chinook come through last week, the warm, dry winds pushed the temps into the upper sixties and finally dried out the ground after the recent rains. Was able to get in a few rides on the Guzzi and also finished up some projects. One of them was fixing the mailbox posts.
About twenty years ago, the state resurfaced the Hot Springs Rd. One of the add-ons to the project was replacing all the mailboxes with DOT approved ones. There's apparently a whole bunch of regs for any mailbox that's placed in a state right of way. so the they figured it was easier to replace all the old boxes with new ones that were approved. So now, the boards that hold the boxes to the post are all failing. Not sure why they're so bad, maybe they didn't use treated wood for that part, since the verticals are mostly fine, but they look like the buildings you see up here in old, abandoned mining camps.
The top boards are all cracked and encrusted with lichens, they could be hundred year old relics!
Replaced the old boards with 2x4 AWW. The bolts holding everything together were 1/2" shank, 3/4" heads that were a real challenge to remove. The whole thing seems incredibly over engineered, so it's ironic that they apparently used untreated lumber that failed in maybe twenty years.
One of the neighbors came by when I was finishing up, so told him I'd help him fix his mailbox. "Just get a 12' AWW 2x4, I'll cut'er in half and drill the holes so you can replace yours. Won't take you an hour."
"Oh I don't know" he said, "maybe I can just fix it with duct tape."
The next day I saw him walking down the road with a rebar and a hammer. He apparently drove the rebar into the ground under the mailbox and used it to prop up the box. I guess replacing the broken boards was just too much trouble for him to bother with it.
The neighbors solution; well like I always sez, to eaches his onus.
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