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Drought renders screw in anchors useless

Two years ago I discovered these screw-in tent pegs that could be used to anchor something into the ground. I have used these quite a few times. It works great. Here’s a movie I made two years ago (August 2016 – average spring and summer for rainfall). Notice how my old and weak cordless screwdriver had no problem screwing the anchors in and how the support was really stable.

About the audio: The camera has a very noisy autofocus and the camera was less than 1″ away from my mouth and nose. Not easy shooting this while doing that.

We had a very dry spring this year (2018) and it hasn’t rained in quite a long time. It becomes problematic for plants, animals and in the end also men. Add to that the scorching heat that has baked the soil into a thick concrete-like layer. This is what happens if I try to screw in a tent peg with my new much stronger cordless drill:

Note: I used an aluminum version for the second video. More expensive but stronger. Lesson learned during June’s Field Day. When the ground is normal, these plastic tent pegs go in like a hot knife through butter. But they just break under the current circumstances. The aluminum ones don’t – or haven’t so far.

Notice the green lawn in the first video (2016) where it’s just brown and yellow in the second video (2018).

As you can see, the screw-in anchor doesn’t really want to go in. And once it’s in, it has no grip. As if I drilled a Ø 25mm hole in reinforced concrete. The dust comes up along with the ‘drill’.

So the drought has rendered these screw-in tent pegs absolutely useless. Unfortunately since I needed them for a temporary antenna setup (post to come).

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