Man that sounds exactly like my first deck project. Ended up with steps that felt like climbing a mountain. The story pole trick is solid, but sometimes I just run a string line with a line level. It's cheap and stops the guesswork before you even start digging. Nothing worse than having to fix a slope after all the posts are set.

That's a brutal wake-up call. I did the same thing with takeout lunches. The daily "just this once" adds up so fast.

My uncle told me he used to call a special phone number for a recorded message that listed new properties in Sherwood Park. It updated every Thursday and you had to write down the addresses really fast. I mean, trying to remember all those details from a robot voice sounds like a nightmare.

Honestly, that's a wild take from Greg but I kinda get it. I only stake now if it's a really bare root whip or the spot is crazy windy. Tbh, watching an unstaked pine wobble a bit in the wind last year made me nervous, but the root ball never moved. So what kind of trees was he planting without stakes? Like, big box store maples in burlap, or smaller stuff?

Wish I had a picture of my first deck project to show you. Let's just say the "gravel base" was more of a light sprinkling, and the whole thing looked like a funhouse mirror after one winter.