Back Fence

I came home from running errands Saturday and found Jonathan in the backyard in the middle of a project. Although we had been concentrating on the inside of the house, we knew we had a full list of things that needed to be accomplished in our yard.

It was clear that the yard had originally been surrounded by a chain link fence but at some point, our neighbor to the west had installed a wood fence adjacent to our chain link. The problem? About a foot of empty space that couldn’t be mowed or trimmed. Sprouting up between the fences were maple seedlings, vines, and any number of weeds. It looked sloppy and overgrown.

Jonathan began by sawing through the trees that had grown through the fence and pulling down the full length of chain link. The poles were so old he literally broke them off by hand. We neatly rolled up the chain link and took everything out to the curb, know that someone would find a use for it. Little did we know it would be our next door neighbors, who were missing one length of chain link fence in their backyard. They came by for some of the extraneous pieces—connectors and caps—that we hadn’t thought to freecycle and their fence was up by the end of the day.

The best part was that Jonathan’s pruning revealed three large boxwoods planted along our back border, the perfect start to a perennial bed.