Of Neighbors and Fences

You already know that I have a fix-it drive, so it won't surprise you to hear that it also appears at home.

This is what the view from the back door looked like when we bought our house eight and a half years ago:



In 2006, we tore down the old garage and put up a replacement. (Which, by the way, has soured me on EVER having major construction done around my house again. If you've dealt with contractors in the past, I don't need to go into detail, so I'll boil it down to three words: broken leach field. That was, in the most literal sense, the shittiest day of my life.)

Over the weekend, with help from our neighbors and our kids, we installed a privacy fence. (You'll be happy to know that my marriage to Old Dog is intact.) The people who live behind us helped every step of the way, and the fellow across the street, who is a cement contractor, brought over BOTH of his Bobcats to help us dig through a stubborn tree stump.

This is what the view from the back door looks like now:


I still don't know if it's true that good fences make good neighbors, but I do know this: good neighbors make good fences.