the fence project

This morning as we waved goodbye to Daddy, I noticed a thin layer of frost on the car. A sign of things to come and a reminder we need to bring everything that's ripe in from the garden. Already! This year's growing season was so short.

Yesterday Ben finished our fence! I hadn't thought it was much of a priority since Joachim is a homebody and he mostly plays in the shade of the carport and doesn't leave the yard.

But a fence keeps out wandering dogs and I realized I couldn't safely have other people's kids over to play. I was also getting tired of looking out my kitchen window at our Baptist neighbor's cinder block building and asphalt parking lot. (Aside from that, they make great neighbors).

In May someone accidentally backed into the passenger door of my car and the insurance settlement just about covered the cost of the fencing materials. I unfortunately have to live with a slightly crumpled door, but the car is old and it still runs fine.

Here Ben is drilling post holes, although he had to dig a lot of them by hand because the dirt is so hard.
Here he is nailing up the pickets... a LOT of pickets.
This is the finished south side (the chain link is coming down next).
This picture is from the front of the house (our side yard).
This is from my kitchen window, no more asphalt and cinder block! Ben doesn't know this, but I'm going to ask for one more section of fence that is angled to 4 feet so it won't end as abruptly.
I do love my finished fence and I'm looking forward to planting lots of flowers along my new border. I think our neighbors at the church are pretty happy with the fence too because our yard isn't much to look at right now... we even got a weed citation warning from the city, which was mortifying, but easily remedied with a lawnmower.

One morning, Joachim and I stepped outside to find a backhoe digging up our yard. Nothing could have been more exciting for a 3 year old boy. They were doing something to our water connection and they had to dig a 6 foot hole!