Fence update

THIS IS QUITE trivial, given yesterday was a dark day and we learned our friend Frank Haxel passed away. I'll have more thoughts about Frank later in the week after the initial shock wears off. If it wears off.

The new gate.

Sheryl spent most of Monday fixing the gate and part of the back fence. There was a lot of unscrewing, hammers pounding and the sound of wood clattering to the ground. I helped with my usual staying out of the way, holding up planks of wood as she screwed them in, and by getting dinner after a very long day for Sheryl. She spent most of the night laying on the heating pad, and it will be even worse tomorrow.

"It's not like I haven't done this already," she said. True. She's pretty much rebuilt the entire fence after the big storm in 2015. I still remember my dad being here a long time ago and us struggling to get the taller west side fence up, and it wasn't fun.

Anyway, the new gate and repaired fence look really good and it actually shuts better. We also made the north end fence taller, to discourage any dirtball fence-jumping. Sheryl's advice is to not get your sweatpants caught in it.

We also got a great tip about the person who ran through the yard. A little digging and we came up with a name and address, and we'll let the police handle it from there. Really there isn't much to it - it's probably going to cost us less than $100 in material, but Sheryl did spend all dang day on it, so you can't really put a price on the time.

It would be worth it for the officer to show up, tell the dirtball he's on video, have the dirtball deny it, and have the officer say, "I noticed your hands are all scrapped up and you have bruises on your arms and legs. How did you get those - crashing over a fence?" Just knowing the dirtball knows we know might be as good as it gets.

We have a new gate, and future gate-crashing is strictly forbidden.