It’s important to mention that between the wind, the neighbors’ livestock, the race team and the occasional lost driver, the fences around here take a beating. (For the earlier chapters, see Another Tale of Fencing and New Fencing.) Here’s a rundown of the fence casualties of the last few years, and who put things back together.
First up, the courtyard. Back in December 2019, one of the race team ran into the decorative white fence, snapping a post and a couple of rails. Carlos, our gardener, had it repaired within a couple of weeks.
Then in February 2023, the neighbor’s cattle decided the grass was greener on our side and wandered right through the mai gate and up the driveway. When I went to shoo them there was chaos and a couple of them broke through the fence.
Mooove along–watch the cows stroll through the gate over on my Instagram.
The section they busted was the one holding our address sign, which was bad timing, as I’d just ordered a new, updated sign. It sat in the foyer for quite a while, waiting for the fence to get fixed first. Which brings me to Rafa.
When we were getting ready to fill the Pit, the general contractor we hired, H & L Construction, accidentally took out one of the house yard fence posts–a giant old railroad tie. We’d found H & L because they were handling the grading and foundation work for the house being built up the mountain from us. Yes, the same project that had all that extra fill dirt we tried to get the Department of Planning to let us use for the Pit. Only because of County’s delays, that didn’t happen.
In December 2023, Rafa and his brothers came out and set the railroad tie back up, and that’s how we met. During the week Rafa works for a general contractor, but on weekends he’ll often take on small projects for us–and as you’ll see, a lot of them involve fences.
Next on his list was the fence the cows broke. Rafa and his brothers sorted out the busted rails, and by January 2024 the new sign was finally up where it belongs.
And of course the wind got its turn. A storm brought down another one of the parchment trees, and it landed right on that same decorative white fence in the courtyard. Rafa and his brothers fixed it while they were here one weekend working on another project. Sadly, I didn’t get any pictures of that one.
And then there was the night of September 2nd, 2024. Sometime around 11:30, a young guy drove up here to take in the view, parked, and managed to get his car well and truly stuck–taking out a chunk of fence in the process. The noise woke Agent Smith, who went up the hill to help the kid out. It took a tow truck to get the car free. To his credit, the kid covered the cost of the repairs, which were handled by (you guessed it) Rafa and his brothers.
So for those keeping score: one member of the race team, a small herd of cattle, one contractor, one tree and one sightseer. The fences lost every round, but thanks to Carlos, Rafa and his brothers, they keep getting back up. But that’s not all…thanks to our awful neighbors to the east the lovely fencing we installed way back in 2017 was in bad shape…more on that in this post.