Daily Bread

[Teacher Terry]

WS, that sounds like a great trip for your kids. My kids go to a lot of places I have no desire to see like India and Vietnam. I love to travel but Europe and cruises are more my style.

[Williamsmith]

This whole border wall thing has me thinking about fences. I personally never constructed one but I grew up with this chain link fence around our back yard. Supposedly this was to keep our dog in the yard and not defecating on the neighbors property but there were some things about it I gradually understood.

There was a reason the fencing was installed with the sharp jagged edge on the top side and the nice rounded edges next to the ground. It had nothing to do with the dog. I remember that our game balls (baseballs, basketballs and footballs) would go sailing over the fence and we would be faced with the long journey down the driveway, up the road, up the neighbors driveway and into their yard to retrieve them. And then double back for the return. We had to get there and back without my mother seeing us or the game would be over and we’d be doing something less “intrusive” to our neighbors right to not be hassled by the kids next door.

So given the increased risk of discovery, we often decided to climb the fence, hop over, grab the ball quick enough to sling it back into our own yard and then climb and hop in return. Trouble with that was another rule.....”don’t climb the fence.” Which if caught would end the game anyway. But the other problem was those jagged sharp pointy tips of galvanized steel. Almost inevitably, you would cut your wrist climbing and jumping in either direction or both.

I also noticed that the fence created the problem of trimming the grass under it and it became a chore I hated. This was done with a hand trimmer while on your knees. Ocassionally a rabbit would stray into the yard to munch on clover. While I didn’t mind a bunny now and again, my dog had other convictions. I remember a troubling incident that played out when an unfortunate hare found the clover in our yard too tempting. My dog chased it back to a small opening in the fencing and it got stuck exposing its hind quarters to the dog. I never heard the crunching of bones before and squalling of a rabbit and I never wanted to again. My dad took a shovel and clobbered the poor bunny on the head to put it out of its misery and then removed the remains from the fence and slung it into the weeds on the bordering property.

I noticed that the fencing was nice and shiny when it was first installed but it wasn’t long before it began to rust and look nasty. A cut wrist on a rusted jagged edge seemed to take longer to heal. The rust would also rub off on your clothes and signal you had broken the rule of no fence climbing to mom. The fence was an uncommon landmark in my neighborhood. Almost nobody else had one. And it seemed to signal a certain attitude to the rest of the neighbors. “These people want to be left alone.” It really wasn’t too far off the mark. We didn’t have to put up no trespassing signs or beware of dog signs either. The fence said it all. It was an expensive purchase but it seemed important to my parents to have a barrier between “us” and “them”.

If I had the choice, I would have grown up without a fence. I would have gladly kept my dog in his yard on a chain or maybe he could have been an inside dog. I would have maybe gotten to know my next door neighbors better. And I would have had so many self inflicted wounds. I’m reminded of it when I see neighbors who have build fences back to back along their border. And every time I have to wait for my security gate to open on my way out of my secure community.

[catherine]

There are fences and there are fences. There are white picket ones, chain link, stockade, brick wall, split rail, bamboo. They are used, as you mentioned, to contain dogs and kids, provide privacy, and sometimes to comply with safety rules, such as the fence enclosures people with pools have to have. As a gardener, I recognize their value as a framework for garden borders, and they also sometimes have an aesthetic quality as part of a landscape design.

Interestingly, my husband agrees with you. He has said, often, that he HATES fences. We will never have one as long as he is alive. He is also an extrovert who sometimes has difficulty with personal boundaries, and I've sometimes made the connection between his personality and his hatred of fences.

I, on the other hand, as the family dog walker, have often coveted my daughter's fence. She awakens briefly in the morning to let out the dog and goes back to bed. When we've had dogs, my routine was up at sunrise, dress rapidly, deny myself my first cup of coffee until after I've walked the dog a mile around the neighborhood. We did have a tie-down so the dog could hang out with us in the back yard, which raises another point for me personally--we live adjacent to a public park, so all of our summer shenanigans were in full view of everyone in the neighborhood.

We don't have a fence in Vermont, either. We're wide open--and the 9 other houses form a border around our common ground, so there is precious little privacy. I like my neighbors when they are there on weekends, but, unlike DH, I'm an introvert, so I also like it when they leave. I would like a quiet corner in my yard.

[Teacher Terry]

We like privacy and have a fence. I like being able to let the dogs out while I make coffee. They also like to roam the yard and talk to the neighbors dogs. We still talk to the neighbors all the time. We entertain frequently in our backyard.

[Tybee]

Add me to the loving the fence crowd. It contains my gardens and my dogs, and we spend hours out there, and I know they are safe.
My fences, with hollyhocks and roses and lilies, are also beautiful!

[Teacher Terry]

I have had to throw a ball back to the neighbor kids many times it answer the door to let them in the backyard. I am fine with that.

[razz]

I have two neighbours in my backyard separated from me by a 4 foot chain link fence. One neighbour has a row of tall conifers just inside their side of the fence and this provides quiet privacy and wonderful home for many birds. I have a row of alternating service berry and redbud trees all along on my side of the fence. In the summer, their foliage provides wonderful and attractive privacy.

The other part has the new owner who suggested to me that she needed a new fence between us.
Her property has high fencing running on both sides down to our joint property line. I asked her about air circulation in her small backyard if she is completely surrounded by 6 foot fencing. She hadn't thought of that at all. For now all is quiet which suits me as I have no interest in a 6 foot fence.

[Tybee]

I love walled gardens and love 6 foot fences. We enjoyed seeing walled in gardens in England, and also Stonewall Jackson's walled in garden in Lexington, Virginia.
One of the awesome things about walled in gardens is that you can manipulate the microclimates a bit and grow fruit trees that you could not grow without the wall.
Jackson's garden:

[razz]

I love walled gardens and love 6 foot fences. We enjoyed seeing walled in gardens in England, and also Stonewall Jackson's walled in garden in Lexington, Virginia.
One of the awesome things about walled in gardens is that you can manipulate the microclimates a bit and grow fruit trees that you could not grow without the wall.
Jackson's garden:

It is lovely and I would enjoy this kind of fence, Tybee, but how large a space are these English gardens?

My neighbour has a 30'x30' space with her 2-story semi-detached house in front of it, 6 foot fence down each side and our shared chainlink in the back.

[Tybee]

The Jackson garden is on a narrow city lot, maybe 30-40 feet wide? It did not go back very far, as you can see in the photo--maybe 60 feet?