Our Little House: Extreme Fence Building!

Hard to believe, but in just a
few hours this became our fence!

Let's set the scene: It's Friday, three days before Jay will take a 6 hour test for grad school application, 5 days before he leaves on a 3 week bike trip, and it's over 90 degrees out. That must mean it's time to build a fence! Larry and Dorothy drove down from Portland with some gorgeous dahlias for us and Larry stayed to help with the fence. He also brought along a heavy duty nail gun and a box of nails, generously loaned out for the weekend by another wonderful family member, Wayne. The guys picked up all of the boards that afternoon and when I got home from work my contribution was prying the barcodes and staples off each one (that's 225, if you're curious)! The evening wasn't cooling down much, so we had some grub and called it a night pretty early so we could get started before the heat set in the next morning.

Jay hard at work!

So now it's Saturday, and Larry has a great suggestion to attach the top rail/cap to the posts before we put boards up. This turns out to be a wonderful idea and made our board setting go super fast! Just as we were getting started our good buddy Jordan showed up! Jordan lives over the mountains in Central Oregon but hangs out with us when he is around and has some free time - and he offered to help us out! Jordan happens to be one of the taller people we know, so he and Jay worked on the top caps while Larry and I got down to business with the fence boards!

Larry making sure the boards are level.

For the first few sections I held the boards up level while Larry secured them with the nail gun. Larry convinced me to give the nail gun a try - I was a little scared of that thing! The last thing we needed was someone to wind up with a nail in their foot, but Larry trusted me and I went for it. And everyone survived unscathed!
Once the top caps were all in place, we each traded off using the nail gun and setting boards. Around the posts a few of the boards had to be cut to fit and in the end it looks perfect!

The chickens are almost gone! Yes,
that's a bed frame in the background...
it makes part of the chicken coop!!!

I know this question has been on your mind - did you cry when the last board was in place on the west side, blocking your view of the chickens for eternity? NO! I made sure to stick my head over one last time and glare back, but we parted on good terms.

We finished everything up around 1 pm, rested a few minutes and congratulated each other on a job well done, then went out for a celebratory beer (and lunch).

Discussing the fence progress; Shep
loving the grass in the background

Rosie the Riveter has nothing on me!

There's no way we could have gotten the fence done so quickly without Larry and Jordan to help us out. Larry's engineering prowess really made this whole project a reality. Thank you both so much!! Come hang out in our (dirt) yard any time!!