Treasure What You Have: If You Build It...They Will Run

Monday, October 13, 2008

If You Build It...They Will Run

Macy loves to be outside and check everything out, so we decided it was time to build a fence! We got a few estimates and decided that "we" - Tracy always says I use that word very loosely :) - could build a much better quality fence for a lot less money. So we went to work (with help from family of course) and I'm not exaggerating one bit when I say this was a BIG project (and I really did end up helping a lot on this one)! Tracy figured out all of the measurements and mapped everything out, then we broke ground on May 16 and Macy was able to run on June 1. We lost a lot of time due to rain delays. Remember how we had one of the wettest springs ever? Yep, that's the same time we were digging - those were not fun days. We fenced in the whole back yard, just under one acre. There is a concrete fence (yes, that's right, I said concrete!) on three sides of our property, but we couldn't use it because we don't own it. We wanted to get the most out of our land though, so it was a little tricky working around the existing fence and building another one. We decided on a wooden picket fence, 5 feet high.

Here's some statistics:

3 weeks (give or take)......7 people (off and on)......95 posts (every single one of them set in concrete)......180 bags of concrete (80 lbs each!)......1,728 pickets (each one of them carried, cut, screwed, nailed, etc. - a true labor of love!)......and speaking of nails alone, well over 10,000 of those......whew, I think I'll stop there!

Pictures of our progress:

The days it didn't rain, we had beautiful weather...look at that pretty sky.

She has no idea what is going on outside :0)

You wouldn't believe how wet it was at the far end! There was so much water in the ground we actually had to scoop it out before continuing.

Macy says "Ewww...yuck!"

Macy had no idea what she was getting into, but even she helped. It may be a little hard to see, but we got her to step in the concrete while it was still wet so we could save her paw print forever! She of course did not like it and got her foot washed off right away, but it makes me smile every time I see it!