Timber, I'm falling...

The Sunday before Memorial Weekend, Keith let the dogs outside one last time before we all went to bed and since we had a horrible storm that night with hail and intense rain, he let them out on the side yard which is adjacent to the garage. After he let them back inside, he asked me if I noticed earlier in the day that our fence was leaning? I was confused by his question because why in the world would our fence be leaning. It was past 11 pm so I thought maybe the darkness of the night was playing tricks on his eyes. Sure enough, when I went outside as well to inspect the fence, the entire fence line was leaning up against a very small oak tree which is probably only 4-5 inches in diameter. This little tree was the only thing holding up the fence and keeping it from collapsing onto the ground and subsequently our house. We were both barefoot and panicking a little bit because we knew we couldn't go to sleep knowing that at any second the fence could come crashing down with the next big wind gust. We were thinking of anything to brace the fence with and I suggested getting a bunch of 2 x 4 pieces of wood to prop the fence up until we could figure out a permanent solution. After grabbing all the spare wood we could find in the garage and shed (thank you former owners for leaving a lot of building materials behind!), we propped up the fence at almost midnight. Neither of us had shoes on and were covered up to our ankles in mud but the trick worked and by morning our fence hadn't budged an inch. It was still leaning very badly but at least it did not come crashing down.

 I quickly sent an email to our neighbors to let them know to not be alarmed when they woke up in the morning to see the fence in the shape it was in. Here's the funny thing about fences...apparently you don't share fences with neighbors; either you own the fence or they do. Unfortunately for us, we own the problem fence so it therefore became our problem to fix! Thankfully we have Hal just a few miles from our house and since he and Janet were going to be in town for Memorial Weekend, it was the perfect opportunity for some manual labor and father/son bonding!!

It was past midnight when we finally braced the entire fence! I wish Keith would have gotten a picture of me (his 8 month pregnant wife) holding up the boards while he pushed the fence in place.

 Memorial Weekend - now, normally we spend this weekend at Cedar Creek Lake with our good friends who have a house there but this year we (meaning Keith and Hal) spend all three days working in our neighbor's backyard since all of the fence posts reside there. When our fence was installed in 1999, the owners chose the cheap route and installed wood fence posts instead of metal ones. Of course over time and lots of wear and tear, all of them need to be replaced and are completely rotten. Not only on this side of the fence but all the other sides :( That is a project Keith will have to tackle over time since it takes forever and quite a bit of money to fix!

Hal and Keith had to dig out all the old, rotten fence posts (I think it was 11 total) and dig out the old concrete which created holes almost 3 feet deep. They took turns pounding into the ground for hours and since I wasn't going to be much helping with the fence, I just made sure they had water, snacks, towels and band aids for each day they braved the sun and hot weather.  

We only had to make one trip a day to Home Depot which isn't terribly considering the amount of supplies (mainly concrete) that we needed for the project. The guys worked so hard each day and I know Keith fell asleep on the couch each afternoon once they were finished for the day. This is probably one of the most physically demanding home improvement projects accomplished but it is something we had to fix immediately or risk losing an entire section of our pretty wood fence.  

Father and son enjoying some quality time together!! I am sure they wish they were both lounging poolside or lakeside drinking a cold beer instead of sweating it out in the heat working on a fence, but I am so very proud of the finished product. They did an amazing job - I will post pictures of the finished fence when they saw off the top few feet of the metal fence posts in the next week or so. I think our neighbors are happy as well to have a sturdy fence on their property so we won't have to worry about this side falling over again. Hopefully Memorial Weekend 2012 will be more of a relaxing weekend!