Fencing

First: The other night I was cuddling Bella after her Magic Treehouse book, and said "you know what? This is what home feels like". She rolled away, out of my arms, and said "and THIS is what the hotel feels like, right?" Sassafrass.

Today was a working day: Zinsser has been a "kept animal" in our house - only out on leashes, always pegged down in the yard. There are/were leash-free dog people on our block, but I could never deal with the heartache of a dog hit by traffic or lost in the wild... So Zinsser has always seen the world at a length of 8-10 feet from us. But there are some neighbors with fenced in yards and Zinsser has loved visiting there, running free.

So we decided to complete the fencing in of our yard. We had Midwest Fence come out and sink some posts, run some fence, and it's gorgeous. But they were only doing fill-in around the existing fences... and prior to letting Zinsser out, we needed to do some patching work on the existing fences: The arty wood fence on the south side needed a mesh backing since the slats were wide enough for a dog to slip through. The two chain link fences on the west and north sides of the yard had enormous holes for the rabbit and raccoon superhighways.

So today we patched it all. We got 50" of 2 foot high coated chickenwire, and 80 feet of one foot high "garden border"... plus we had about 10 feet of left over chain link. With a staple gun and a bunch of zip ties, we have sealed the yard, and we "released the hound" at about 4pm this afternoon.

Zinsser was at first tentative, then walking more confidently, and then spent a full hour tearing through the yard at full speed. The kids had a slip and slide going which he ran through a few times too - by the end, we had a wet, happy, tired dog. Just watching that happy animal made me so content. To be able to open that back door and let him run for a while will just be great.

I confess I did get a toy while we were doing all this shopping for fencing. Yeah, I got a gas powered weed whacker. 4 stroke engine for low pollution and high power, and it's not THAT loud. I whipped all sorts of weeds into submission with a cackle. And when I say "weed" I also mean "small trees". We also got a rototiller attachment which looks formidable. With the fence done, our job tomorrow is to whip the victory garden into shape. Hopefully it's not too late to get some herbs and tomatoes started.

We spent most of the day outdoors, and that wipes people out. Isaac was down by 7:45. Pamela by 8:30. Bella took a little longer to conk out at 9:30, and here I am with my content dog at my side still finding some energy. I might watch a Buffy before bed.

It was a good day.