My Trusty Pink Fence Post Driver

Any time I’m using tools, I’m happy and I got to use one of my favorites today….my pink fence post driver! It’s exciting (to me, anyway) to be able to put a steel post into our dry/hard Arizona soil with not too much effort. My project turned out to be tougher than I thought, though. This tree has never been able to withstand the strong winds we get a couple of times a year so it has been tied down for the last 5 years. I got tired of tripping or falling over the wire tie downs so I asked my metal artist friend, Joan Waters, to help me figure out something a little less annoying. We put our heads together and came up with a tree collar with supports. The tough part was trying to get the driver over the poles because they were so close to the trunk but I did it. All in all, it looks a lot better than the wires. It remains to be seen if it can support the tree in high winds but I’m hopeful.