Hello Again

Once again it has been a long time since my last post.  I actually can't even remember excuses going that far back, only that lately life been rather full of big projects.

There is a post that should be on here, but I can't make my smart phone (clearly we know who is smarter!) give it up.  It was about the sad, sad loss of my chickens to suburban ideals.  Our county forbids the keeping of farm animals like cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens.  Personally, I tend to think that one of those things is not at all like the others, but I recognize that that's a rather unusual perspective.  In August the city animal control officer dropped by and gave us a notice to get rid of the chickens, or else.  After N's original impulse to move and rent our house out to slobs "Just to show 'em!" blew over, we decided to sell our three beautiful, just-started-laying hens.  And build a privacy fence.

The perfect backyard flock, enjoying some clover

Good news about this: I sold the hens for $25 apiece on craigslist and had my pick of buyers.  It turns out there are many people in our area with privacy fences, and no good sources of backyard chicken flocks.  This is more than enough money to...err...not replace our chickens six months later.

Without the old fences our yard feels really open

Bad news about this: the fence has turned out to be one of those really big projects that we just can't seem to get done.  We are totally enclosing the backyard, with a total of more than 200 feet of fence.  For some reason, I thought we could get most of this done in one weekend, with the help of seven good friends and neighbors who came over to help.  After several hours and several inches of rain, we had managed to tear down two of the three existing fences that needed to come out, trim back the weeds growing at the top of the back 40, distribute the fence lumber all over the backyard, dig four good holes and three bad ones, and all get completely filthy in the drizzly rain and resulting mud.

Also, sometime that day or the next, despite our best efforts to keep him away from it, N got a nasty case of poison ivy that eventually became seriously infected.  However, he is finally on the mend and we are really close to finishing the replacements for the two fences we removed.  Once that is done our yard will be at least as private as it was before.  With less and less daylight each day, we are in quite a hurry to tear down the third (and final) chain-link and finish the job.  In the meantime, the kids think our totally non-OSHA approved yard is fantastic!

The boys climbing on the wood piles

 I'll publish photos of the finished fence when it the second side is finished.  It is going to be quite handsome, if I do say so myself.