so i'm going to build an outdoor gym on an island in our backyard pond. but first i have to get there.

the crude sketch above is an aerial layout of the space behind our house.

1. the blue on the left is a creek that feeds into the pond

2. the green blob in the middle of blue is our island

3. the dark green surrounding the pond is ~30 acres of woods

4. the gray line from left to right is a portion of trail leading to the island

step 1 of getting to the new gym is a small gate in our backyard. this goes directly behind our existing garage gym, at the bottom of the hill below. so let's get to it.

i wanted to save a few bucks on this project so i salvaged a leftover animal pen gate from our barn renovation. here is where i'm putting it, directly outside our existing gym. 

i tried to also re-use some gate anchors, but they're meant for 6x6" posts and our fence here uses 4x4" posts. i then went to Tractor Supply and it turns out, these only come in 6"+ lengths. so i went another direction and we'll see if it works.

here are some of the tools i used. over the years i've observed Barns Law -- no matter how prepared you think you are, you will always need to return to the barn for more tools.

i had to buy a 4x4" post, some concrete, and a 2x6" board totaling $43. the alternate gate hardware was another ~$30, which is a total rip-off but i didn't want to wait for Amazon. this was a spontaneous weekend afternoon project.

anyway, i started removing gate wire with my bolt cutters.

next i sliced the existing 2x6" boards running laterally to make room for the swing.

to hold the boards in place i recreated what was happening on the left side of the gate -- a 4x4" post with a vertical 2x6" behind it. a few minutes with the post hole digger got me a couple feet deep.

after widening this a bit i dropped in the post, then a few bags of fast setting concrete. no need to mix it, just pour alongside water.

before adding the concrete i made the post plumb. the trick here was to not follow true level per se, but rather to maintain an even reveal in parallel with the right side of the gate.

at this point i hit "pause" to let the concrete cure.

the next day i was back at it, adding the 2x6" board to the back side, sandwiching the lateral 2x6's between the new post. then i measured the cutoff and used a square to match the mitered angles on other posts.

someone broke my larger reciprocating saw so i have to make this better with a sander but oh well. after cleaning up the site a bit, i called it good.

soon enough the new lumber will blend in with the existing fence which is not stained, only weathered.
 
although this was just a tiny step towards the larger goal, it felt good to get this done at the very beginning of the year.