Putting up a fence...

"Good fences make good neighbors"
-Mid-17th century proverb

The last three weeks have been absolutely crazy busy. Starting a new job, learning to balance my freelance work, and trying to unpack and organize our house... between all that, there has been little time for anything else. But, I couldn't leave you hanging without an update on our biggest home improvement project yet.

Up to now, our backyard has been wide open to the overgrown slope and ultimately to the woods behind the house, as well as open to our neighbors' yards on both sides... one of which has a habit of parking a truck back there(??). Neighbors' cats have called our grass home, neighbors' children have run through our yard, and once I even found a little girl sitting on our patio picking wildflowers.

But, none of that shall be a problem anymore. This past weekend we built a fence. Mainly Rob, his brother-in-law Dan, and Thomas did, but I unloaded and toted a few boards myself.

We sweated out getting approval from the homeowner's association in time (and, in fact, we actually started before we heard back) and were much relieved when the official signatures came in the mail on Saturday afternoon.

Dan has a lot of fence and general construction experience, and his knowledge was invaluable in purchasing the correct supplies, setting up level posts, and even troubleshooting when things didn't go as planned. While digging their first hole, they hit an irrigation line (hey, we learned that we have an irrigation system!) and while digging the last hole, they found a considerable amount of cement slab buried in the yard, but everything in between was pretty much smooth sailing. Rob might not quite agree with the term "smooth sailing" as this South Carolina clay is a beast to dig through (and, now Dan is out of work for the rest of the week due to pulled muscles).

However, I'm extremely grateful for all of their hard work. The result transformed our backyard. We will still have to stain it, build a gate, and probably replace a few warped boards, but in the mean time, I'll just sit on the patio and enjoy the view.