You may recall that back in November I had an issue with a bear. The bear pulled down a section of my fence, pulled out a wall in my wonderful compost bin and had a munch on some apple leavings from when I made and canned my applesauce in the fall.
THIS year I will not make that mistake. THIS year I will dig the apple leavings directly into whatever vegetable bed I am working on in order to augment the soil directly AND avoid any bear invasions to my yard.
This weekend saw the initial stages of the New Back Fence project get off the ground. Or into it, if you like.
On Friday my Mum & Dad and their dog Querida, and my Brother and Nephew came for a part of the day to visit and help get the old fence torn down and taken apart, dig fence-post holes and brace up the posts to hold in place until I can get concrete into the holes and also to put up a temporary fence to keep Miss Jasmine contained in my back yard while all of this is ongoing. Because it was a Friday, my Sister in Law was working and unable to come (I asked her to skip school but she has a good work ethic and went to work instead of coming to goof off with us up here) but I am hopeful that on the next fence project day she can come too.
While Mum and I distracted Finn (my gorgeous Nephew) Dad and Rob went to town on the old fence. The pulled it down, pulled out the old post that the gate was hung on, dug deep holes, braced and placed the new fence posts (in readiness for concrete insertion - which one of my neighbours is going to help me out with) and then erected a new temporary fence to keep Jasmine in the yard.
Here's the state of the union before:
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| Before the bear pulled it down |
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| After the bear pulled it over and I propped it back up |
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| Fence post in the corner - yes, it really IS not touching the ground! |
The fun part of Friday for me was actually playing with Finn and my Mum in puddles. Mum & I walked Finn around to the Number 6 Mine Park in Cumberland where they have some great toddler-friendly activity thingies like slides and wheels to spin around on posts. The skies opened up and POURED on us while we walked over so we took temporary refuge on the platform and waited for the rain to ease off a little. We checked out the fun stuff and then on the way back we sploshed Finn in puddles. Mum and I each held onto one of his hands and played "one, two, three - WHEE" with him - whee being the part of the game where we swung him up in the air and he landed both feet into the puddle. Finn had a ball with this and made some great splashes as Cumberland has some rather significant potholes. Needless to say, Finn`s clothing all came off when we got back to my house and it all went into the drier!
The bulk of the work dealt with, after lunch all that was left to do was to take apart the old fence sections. Rob, Mum & Finn headed back down to Nanaimo, and Dad an I made short work of taking it all apart and pulling out all of the old nails. I will not be able to salvage any of the old fence for use in the new fence - the boards are pretty rotted and worn away - but I WILL be able to recycle the old fence boards into my compost bin. I`m going to be moving it (yes, again) and I have decided that I will be going back to a single bin as, except for Autumn (when the leaves make a great addition) one bin is typically enough for my needs.
I`m going to move it back across the yard to where it was in the first place - between the lilac tree and the shed - it will be less visible in the old (new) spot and with the help of the fence boards I am going to be able to incorporate, it should be sturdy and unlikely to leak compost guts out the sides.
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| Compost bin - current location. |
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| New (old) compost bin location |
Here`s a final shot of what the yard looks like at the end of today`s fencing activities. I can only hope that no hooligans come around and push the posts over before the concrete gets poured!
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| Temporary fence in place New fence posts in and waiting for concrete! |
With love across the waters,
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