Fences Fences Everywhere

 

Oh how I'd love to have the fence above, but alas... it's not going to happen. I've spent a lot of time looking around at what others have done as far as perimeter fences and gates, how they're embedded into stone (or concrete in some cases) and here are a few samples of what I'm looking at nearby in Covington, KY.

 

I like the one above, it's about three blocks away from us, and although we don't have the stacked stone base under the limestone, I see this as a distinct possibility to emulate.

Hoop and spear, pretty basic... in concrete.

Above, in limestone, below in concrete. Again, all ok as far as I'm concerned.

 Now, this is going to be the part that kills me: finding these end posts. OK, maybe not the one below, but it's pretty darn cool.

Almost time to fix the concrete

It's been this way since the beginning.

Ok, it's much much cleaner now, but it's still rather soulless.

This past Fall, the place next door to us was being worked on by the city. This included replacing hundreds (if not a thousand) bricks on the breezeway wall facing our entrance. A much improved situation, I'll agree, but the scissor lift did a hell of a job on our concrete ... cracks are bigger... one slab seems to have dropped 1/2". Not good. I don't think they're coming back to fix it, as they promised, either.

So it's time to start thinking about either digging it all up and re-pouring, or resurfacing. No way in Hades am I pouring the same grey/green sidewalk-looking, parking lot eyesore slab.

No, I want stamped and dyed concrete. Patterned in brink.















I want it, but not sure of the cost. I'm thinking... A LOT.

But first thing's first... we can't dig up and pour without setting in a new fence first, and our wrought iron fence has been locked up in the back yard for long enough. Time to start looking for the Sandstone base and a welder.

This is what I'm looking to base our plan on, although our fence is hairpin & loop (see pic below).




























Not exciting, but it was 100% free. :-)

Of course, we could dig up the front slab (it's going away forever, I want a small garden plot in the front) and we could find a brick walkway under all that concrete. Who knows. Demo is a very exciting time.

Now where are those jackhammers?

Yard, Fence, Gate.

Yeah, I've been hell on wheels when it comes to the garden. Interior trim be damned, I'm out a trim nail gun for the time being and you gotta make tomatoes while the sun shines.

I've about ruined my back, but I've learned a few important lessons I want to share.

First of all, any piece of cr@p land with dirt on it can be a garden. I just came back from Home Depot's garden center and they have a demo out on a concrete slab that is growing lush and beautiful 3" grass on it. On concrete. Yeah. With the right chicken wire, you can have grass growing on your walls.

With today's technology and fertilizers (organic and man-made) there is no such thing as a non-green thumb.

That being said, we had cr@p land with dirt on it. The first time we tilled the soil, we unearthed the dormant weed/grass seeds that had been waiting for decades to see the sun.

The original state, just as a reminder, was this:




















Big tree, no sun.














Just a chain link fence, millions of seed pods and the most godawful invasive weed-shrubs you can find (right side of picture, on the East side of the yard.). We've dug them all up, killed them, insulted their ancestry, and we're STILL getting little new creepers coming out of the ground like little fingers of the dead.

We took down the Catalpa tree...














































But then we still had the stump... which stayed as a fire pit for over a year.














When we needed to put up the fence, it had to go.














Unfortunately, there was about 70% more to this stump below ground than above it. The picture above is with the stump dug out and half of it already removed.














Then we sank a 12' 4x4 and put up the rest of the fence.

OK, now to present time: We have the new dogeared wood panel fence completely up in the back yard. The elaborate sliding gate we had planned on has been put on hold. We needed a gate pronto, and we we're having a hell of a time finding the right tracks, wheels, etc. for the earlier design, so that plan is on hold for now. The good news is that we can re-use the same materials if we need to rebuild anything.

So we settled.














We took a regular 6x8 fence panel, reinforced it with metal nailers at the corners, then used 2 turnbuckles to keep the panel square and used it for the larger panel on the south side of the gate, added mojo hinges, a cane bolt, a latch and a $30 wheel with a spring. This one swings outward.

The other gate panel had to be built from scratch, with 2x4 PT lumber and individual slats we'd salvaged from the other panels when building the rest of the fence. We used one 2x4 diagonal cross brace and another turnbuckle. It swings inward.

It's not great, the right side is a bit wobbly still, but it works.

Now that we have a secure garden, it's on to planting. I think that's worthy of another post altogether.

I've been very very busy.

*PS a quick note on the first image in this post... I made 2 shelves with leftover fence rails on the gate by cutting the slat to size and screwing it sideways onto the gate panel structure supports with 4-5 screws each. Makes a great place for seedlings, light tools or a wine glass :-)

The life cycle of a tree

For this Catalpa Tree, life was a thing to remember. Already about 140 years old, with rot seeping in, last year we knew it had to go.






















Chopping day. Thanks to this wild eyed-hillbilly and a chainsaw, it was pretty quick coming down.






















It hovered over the house by about 25+ feet, and we're pretty sure that if we hadn't taken it down when we did, when the remnants of Hurricane Ike came through, it would have taken a chunk of the house down with it.
















3/4 of the tree is cut, this last teeny bit left.
(Zach is doing his best king-of-the-hill stance.)






















When the day was over, we had a yard full of firewood, a pile of sticks about 9' high and this stump which became our fire pit for almost a year. Thanks to Zach, we've had the fire department show more than a passing interest once or twice. :-)

















But darn it if hasn't been keeping us from putting up our fence.






















After a year as a fire pit, this was all that was left...... above ground.

















But I had absolutely NO IDEA that catalpa trees are a lot like icebergs. After digging around the outside, we realized there was a WHOLE LOT MORE underneath.
















The pictures do not do justice.

There was at least 85% more root under the visible stump.

It had been a monster tree, and now it was a monster stump.

Here it is about half gone already, about 3' below ground level. Between the stump and the 4x4 in the picture below, is a section of one of the roots. It was at least 12" in diameter. And that was just a root.

This crater is about eight feet in diameter.
















And we definitely need to give credit where credit is due.

I posted an ad on Craigslist and this guy did a hell of a lot of work for $150. His name is Joey Casey and works for Casey's Construction in Ft. Mitchell, KY. Call him if you need someone with a chainsaw and a good head on his shoulders. (859) 757-6132.

I think his family company also does mason's work. Concrete slabs, walkways, patios and the like. A very conscientious worker. Highly recommended.

















It took him the better part of six hours working alone on this bad boy, non-stop. And when he was done, over 600 lbs of stump had been excavated, chopped, sawed, heaved and chucked aside.
















The next morning, the birds were chirping (mostly because there were a LOT of worms unsettled and the robins were having a breakfast feast) and the sun was shining, and the stump was 12" below ground level.

After 2 quick cups of coffee, I was out there with a shovel and every brick, chunk of concrete and speck of dirt I could find. I thought I'd need a truck load of fill dirt to fill the gaping hole left in the yard where the wood came out.

Seriously, it looked like a bomb had exploded in the yard and left a crater.

The neighbors should be happy to note that a majority of their concrete crap pile is now gone.

It's been buried alive.

While in the process of filling the crater back up, we realized that if we were going to put a 4x4 fence post in the crater, we were going to have to skip the 8 footer and spring for the 10 footer, if only to make sure the base of the pressure treated 4x4 was in settled, compacted dirt.

So while standing in the crater, I used the fence post digger to dig down another 2 feet.

And then we poured the concrete.
















I can't believe I finally have a fence.
















Kinda funny how the tree becomes a stump becomes pressure treated lumber.

It's that whole cycle of life stuff from the Lion King, no?

Oh well, that's what I'm telling the neighbor kid, anyway.

Putting up a fence and a gate

Now that we have the tree down, we've started planning for the new gate.

The old chain link fence is godawful and partially down due to the tree coming down anyway, so now's a good a time as ever.

We're looking at stock fencing from Home Depot, and it looks like we're going to need about 20 sections and a gate for the off street parking area.

The gate is what we've mainly been contemplating.... how to open and close it. My idea is a set of 2 rollers on the back side of the moving gate, and runners on the stable side upon which the rollers will glide. (see image) Hubby's idea is building a tall gate
overhang over the top of the gate opening from which the gate would hang, like a barn door.

I thought that could be a problem if taller delivery trucks wanted access, but we'll see. It may just come down to ease of building and cost.