Post-Thanksgiving Labors

While the rest of the world is out shopping on this Black Friday, Rick and I dealt with a different kind of black -- dirt -- in our back yard.  We made great progress on the fence today.

Yesterday was a delightful day both because we did not work on the fence and also because we had family over for Thanksgiving.  Our nephew Jon just accepted a teaching job only 12 miles from here, so we invited him to spend the day with us, helping us eat the turkey.  Thanksgiving was the traditional feast: turkey, stuffing, two kinds of cranberries, spiced potato slices, green beans, and a pumpkin roll with cream cheese filling.  We all ate too much, but we had a good time spending it with family.  The day was fun and relaxing, something that all of us desperately needed.  Jon went home with food for a couple of days, and we were thankful that he did.  We still will be chewing on the old bird for the next couple of days ourselves.

Rick had helped Jim, our neighbor, move his boat out of his back yard so that we did not fence it in. That gave us the freedom to continue adding the fence to the south side of the house.  Rick had dug the hole for the next panel on the south, and the first hole for the first panel on the north this past Monday.  Since it rained Tuesday, we were not able to work.  Sadly, the holes half filled with water, so we could not work on Wednesday.  That was probably a good thing because then I had time to prepare the house for our guest and to get some of the cooking done.

Today we were back at our labors.  Our challenge this morning was the weather.  When we went outside, the temperature was 44 degrees with a wind chill of 36.  We both came back in to add another layer of clothing, and we added hats or scarves so that the heat did not escape from our bodies so quickly.  I even added a winter scarf to keep the cold breezes from going down the neck of my two sweatshirts. Gloves were necessary so we could move our fingers.  I know that 44 degrees sounds like a heat wave to most of our friends and family in Wisconsin, but the cold down here is a damp cold that penetrates a person's very core.

So there we were, waddling around like fattened bears just before the winter, hauling out all of the gear necessary for the fence.  The south pole and panel went in first with few problems. We both agree that blocking out the neighbor's storage sheds with clean white fencing is a welcome sight.  Once we get the whole yard enclosed, the yard will then become an extension of the house, like another huge room.  I cannot wait to decorate it with bushes and colorful flowers.

Each panel that goes up adds more to our privacy.

The second panel of the day went up on the north side of the house.  This panel, too, was not too much trouble. The ground was a bit muddy yet; however, adding the panel helped define the corner.

The inspects the hole for the next post.  The remains of the
root that he cut out are visible behind where the post will
be secured.

Then Rick started to dig the first post on the east (back) of our property.  That area is where the former owner of this house had planted a "jungle" of bushes, trees, and plants for privacy.  On top of that, we knew we would have to contend with roots from the camphor tree behind the neighbor's chain link fence.  One root in particular had surfaced and ran about four feet above ground level into our yard.  That root had to be removed because the top of it actually was above the level of the bottom of the fence. Rick worked for quite a while, cutting out the root in four sections.  The root itself was at least 10" in diameter, so I could barely pick up the cut pieces to haul them away.  Naturally, once that root was gone, we dug a little deeper and found yet another huge root in the way.  Rick did a bit of creative carving to get the hole in the correct position for the post.

Once that panel was in, we had yet another corner of the yard defined.  I wish that the gardenia tree were positioned a little more to the left, but nature chose the location for that tree long before the fence went in.  Maybe I will put a big, colorful pot of flowers next to it to balance out the area.

The northeast corner of the yard is complete and
provides a cozy home for my gardenia tree.

We took a break for lunch both for nourishment and to warm up a bit, and then we put in the third panel.  I started to wash down the posts, and when I looked up, Rick was back on the south side of the yard digging the hole for the next panel and post tomorrow.  He does not know when to quit.

When he finished that one, he came back and started the hole for the next post on the east side.  Once again, he almost immediately ran into root problems.  The whole area needs to have lots of soil removed since it is mounded higher than the rest of the yard. While I started to move dirt away, Rick once again got out the SawsAll and started attacking another giant camphor root.  The entire yard reeked of camphor, as does our garage where I disposed of one smaller section of root.  In the end, we now have two holes ready to accept posts tomorrow.

The holes for the posts on the east side of the property will
give us grief because of the roots we will encounter.

I was exhausted, the bottom dropped out of my blood sugar, and I simply had to quit.  By this time, it was almost 3:00 p.m., so we put in a much longer day than I had anticipated.  We cannot keep up this pace... or at least I cannot do so.  The fence will get done when the fence will get done.  We are not in a race to impress anyone, and I personally would like to be alive at the end of this project to actually enjoy my fenced-in back yard!