“Remoted” – Workday 81 / Day 109 (Friday)

The Friday vacation day of leisure did not work out as originally envisioned. Instead, it was more of a workout. The crisp, cloudy day inspired hard labor out in the yard.

New fence!

The new vinyl  fence is installed between my yard and the neighbor on one side. We had quotes, but the fence companies couldn’t start the work until late July or early August. Neighbor Guy has been out of work because the gym he works for has been closed under the pandemic mandate, so he did the installation, along with a privacy fence along another part of his yard, and next up, picket fence for my front yard. The post caps still need to be installed for the side yard to finish it off, but he did a great job. 

The new fence is along the property line, several feet from temporary wire fencing that a friend installed for me when I first moved in. The old wire fencing was placed based on the length of the dog run and lead from Previous Neighbor Guy. If set along the property line, Biscuit could have plowed through the fence with running room to spare, so we took it in several feet to build a buffer between the canines. The new fence location means I gained some back yard space. It also meant for a day there were two fences in the yard, creating a non-man’s land in between.

Beast Mode was needed to
 remove the old wire fence.

This morning, the cool air was perfect for donning the work gloves and taking out the old fence. This turned out to be a bit harder than expected. First, I needed something to cut the wire securing the fencing to the stakes. The options in my possession are household scissors, carpet knife, box cutter, or hedge clippers, none of which seemed suitable. Neighbor Guy loaned me wire cutters and I was in business. After the wires holding the fence to the stakes were cut, I nearly gave myself a tracheotomy while pulling up the stakes, which was an odd mix of harrowing and exhilarating. The wire fencing did not just fall over onto the ground when the wires were cut and the stakes were out. Instead, it remained standing, anchored to the ground by the grass that had grown through the bottom section of the fencing. Beast Mode was activated and with a good amount of pulling, yanking, and nearly landing on my arse it finally came free. 

Despite it feeling like it might rain, the day stayed dry and cloudy, so turds were harvested, the lawn was mowed, and the trails of grass clippings were raked. The momentum was strong, so the remaining irises dug up from the front yard several days ago were transplanted along the back fence line. There are still more plants to be dug up for the front yard fence installation, but I have another week to make that happen.

The yard looks better, but all that fresh air and hard labor was damn tiring. Yawn.