I’ve been living in this house for almost four years now, and seriously feeling the need for a fence for over two years.  But having a fence installed is very expensive – to enclose our yard would cost about $7000.  And two years ago my wonderful dh agreed to put one in because he loves me and knew how important it was to me, but it honestly was too big of a project for him to take on in his limited time, so it never got done.

Finally this year I decided if I wanted a fence, I was going to have to spearhead the project myself.  So I did, but lest you think that means I did a lot of work, I’ll clarify- it means that my kids got on board with the idea and were very motivated to get one put in.  I did all the shopping and getting supplies from the store to home, and said what I wanted. They’re doing all the rest.

Almost two weeks ago we rented a two person power auger to facilitate digging the post holes.  My dh started off doing it with ds16, but he was feeling under the weather so then dd15, dd13, and ds11 took turns with one another. They really enjoyed that!  Too bad our camera wasn’t working – it would have been a great picture!  Theoretically all of the holes we needed to have dug could have been dug in the 4 hour rental period.  But it required preparation which hadn’t been done and it took some time to figure out the auger, so a number of holes still had to be dug manually afterwards.

Then a week later (when it was again dh’s day off of work), the kids started setting the posts in concrete.  I think dh did the first few with them, then they continued on their own in the afternoons when their academic work was done.  This week dd13 and ds16 have been hard at work digging the remaining holes with a manual post hole digger, then cementing in the poles.  It’s not only very physical work, but exacting to get things lined up exactly right, and they’ve done a great job.

Today I went with a friend to pick up the fencing panels, but was told my credit card was declined when I tried to pay.  I was very surprised since I use only a small part of my available balance each month, and it’s always paid off in full on time, so I couldn’t even guess what the problem could be.  My friend offered to use her credit card to pay for the purchase, and after realizing that for Memorial Day weekend there was a 10% discount for military (which she is), I agreed!  (Turns out the card was declined because my company flagged it as a fraud alert – four hours later they called to tell me and said, “Are you still in the store?  If you’d like to complete your purchase now, you can go ahead.” :roll:)  So it worked out well that I couldn’t use my card since it saved me $75. 🙂

So late this afternoon the supplies were all finally here and the fence started going up!  It’s really, really exciting to see it happening.  All the other work was preparatory, but now I can already begin to get a feeling of privacy when I’m outside – ahh!!  I love privacy!  I enjoy people, but I really like having my own clearly defined space.

My kids are really hard workers and the bulk of the credit for this particular project goes to dd13 and ds16.  Right now (11 pm) there are thunderstorms, but assuming that they clear somewhat by tomorrow and it’s dry enough to work outside, they’re hoping the bulk of it will be up by Shabbos!

(Of course, my frugal price analysis will come soon. :))

Avivah