The Fence!

The lot for the house that I purchased is oddly shaped, like an elongated trapezoid. It is fenced along the property line with old chain link. To put up a 6 foot wooden privacy fence along the entire perimeter would have cost me almost $9,000! That's a lot of money that I don't have. I decided to fence half of it, getting 6-foot tall sides and a shorter, four-foot section across the middle. Eventually I will fence all of it but this keeps the dogs safe and allows me to pretend that the dense, dark jungle of the "lower forty" isn't a problem I need to deal with right now.

This photo doesn't even begin to capture the trashy, underbrushy mess that is most of the backyard. And despite the fact that the fence is the topic of this post, this is the only photo I decided to post showing the nice, new fence. 

And today, after 7 days of hard work by mainly two guys, the fence is completed! They placed it inside the existing chain link, so they only had to remove the parts of the chain link that were visible from the street. They had to do a lot of brush clearing and tree chopping, which contributed to the long job duration. Normally a fence of this size would have been up and done in two days, maybe three.

Anyway, I let the dogs out to investigate their new backyard. It's a real mess--tons of trash, broken glass, rocks, dead trees, brush, dead leaves. It hasn't been cared for in quite a while. No poison ivy that I've seen yet. Of course I'm worried about snakes but I bought a big bag of SnakeAway granules at Home Depot that I plan to put out on Sunday. Having the fence guys tramping around for a week helps too--snakes don't like that kind of commotion. They said they didn't see any but I remain vigilant. The AT&T internet guy told me that he's mostly seen black rat snakes, and those are the good kind of snakes. Even so, I think I want them far away along with the venomous ones. And the gnats and mosquitos and flies are horrible, but I can't spray for those until I get some of the brush and leaves cleared up. A big job, that's for sure.

Enjoying some time on the deck at last.