Star pickets

Pam asked about star pickets - be careful what you wish for - because the answer is quite simple but also star pickets are the life force that holds the universe together. Like duct tape, or command hooks.

Star pickets are steel fence posts - this is our western fence and a fairly typical agricultural fence anywhere in Australia. They have four points so look like a star from the top, although these might be "Y" ones looking closer. I don't know anyone who has ever bought star pickets, they just appear, and you always have them, but never enough, and they are completely indestructible. We have some that we pulled out of the creek, and many more that were just lurking in the corners of the sheds. They come in short and long versions, and you can get little plastic covers for them with star-shaped insides if you want to use them as supports (or not impale yourself).

A common way of building compost bins is pallets and star pickets. You put the pickets in (we have a star picket driver, very useful) then thread the pallets through them at the corners.

When I made my ad hoc green house out of frost cloth I put in smaller star pickets to tie the chicken wire to so it wouldn't blow away. Here they are holding up the old gate that forms the end of the big wood pile.

And stuck into besser blocks (also known as breeze blocks, concrete blocks and grey bricks) for the smaller wood pile so they won't roll away. 

And for marking out the site of our future vege beds in the vege cage ... in preparation for making a layout decision. Someday, maybe. So there you go, just a small fraction of the wonder that is the star picket. I didn't include any that were holding up sapling trees because that is Bad Gardening (too destructive when you remove them or something).