Fence Building 201

The adage (or perhaps it's just a poem) goes "good fences make good neighbors." Our last couple of weekends of working on the fence beg me to ask "do fences make good families?"

Unfortunately, I only have pics from a few weekends ago when our mission was to finish getting the rails up and start placing the pickets on the first panels. Since then, we've (by which I, once again, mean "Eric's family") finished all the pickets and the three gates.

It basically went something like this:

Eric and his dad discussed the plan of attack: a conversation which I'm sure involved Loren offering all sorts of sage advice but then reassuring Eric that "it's his house" and that they should do it the way he wanted to. At which point Eric mulled it over for about two seconds before agreeing with his father. (Although to be fair, Eric did pretty much all the designing.)

Eric did most of the measuring and the math because he's supposed to be good with numbers, although, honestly, the calculator his mom carries in her purse (and gets teased for doing so) came in handy.

Dane did lots of cutting because he's meticulous.

Lu and Loren put the pickets up. I hope this fence didn't come between them.

That's supposedly that guy's middle name, but....
... it was Loren who was taking the real risks by ripping boards so that they would fit precisely at either side of each panel using a guard-less table saw.

But not to worry, the only major injury was incurred when Loren drilled into his own thumb.

A few weeks later, the crew reunited along with youngest brother, Tyler, who took on much of the drilling because, well, he's tall. Sorry, Ty, no pictures from this weekend. Loren's thumb had healed quite nicely.

I did a little measuring here and there, since I do so much when I'm sewing anyway, but mostly I found inventive ways to use my pregnancy as an excuse to not do much of anything at all. Or, as my five year old nephew pointed out his weekend when he dropped by with his mom and siblings to see the fence, "Let's leave the men to the work and go inside where the ladies are lounging." 'Twas true. We were lounging.

I'm still not entirely sure that good fences make good families. At least one member of my family is already jealous that I married into a family that is so handy, not to mention a little obsessive compulsive when it comes to home renovation. So I guess at the very least "good families make good fences."

Next time in the fences trilogy: pictures of the final product (we still have a few more finishing touches to put on) and the pros and cons of having a puppy running wild in the backyard.