Re-fencing

It seems like forever ago that we de-fenced the back yard to enable the equipment to come in and put on our addition.

Last week, we started the process of putting it back up. Step 1 was the usual "Canmore time" wait of a week to get the lumber brought in from somewhere, probably Antarctica based on how long it took.

One whole lotta boards. It's a 24' section of fence

We opted to build it out of pressure treated wood, instead of rot resistant cedar, or spruce that is cheap but that we would have to paint.

Next step was to dig the hole for the first fence post. My soil is glacial till. Mostly rock. With some clay thrown in for good measure. Digging the first fence 36" deep post hole took almost 3 hrs. The first foot took a half an hour, but then you could do that with a shovel. The next foot was harder, with more rock. We pulled out one the size of a football. The last foot was so deep it had to be entirely done by hand while lying on the ground and reaching in as far as you could.

Uncomfortable. Slow work, too

That's all we could get done with the limited time we had the first day.

On Day 2, we got the post up in the correct spot, made it perfectly vertical (thus not matching a single other fence post on our property), then connected it to an existing post with rails.

Screwing in the rail supports

We then started the digging of the 2nd post hole.

More ground hugging love

Unfortunately, we ran out of time to finish the hole that day.

Day 3 saw us finish hole #2, put the post up, connect it with rails...

Screwing up the rail hangers 

Both rails up

...and start the process of hanging fence boards.

The start 

Peeking through 

Finished. This part, anyway

And again, we ran out of time. Day 4 was then spent finishing the boards on the other section...

Nailing them up 

Looking straight

...and building the frame of one of the two gates.

An L

And that's all we could get done on Day 4.

It amazes me that it can take 5 days to build 24' of fence. But it's more like 5 half-days, as we've been so busy we haven't been able to put in more than 4 hours work on it on any given day.

For instance, Day 3 was Saturday. There was a free Spirit of the West outdoor concert down in Kananaskis Village as part of their fall festival that we had to go to.

John Mann and Geoffrey Kelly

No one in the dance space... yet

It was a great concert -- despite the fact that 10 minutes in, it started raining, and it was POURING and howling wind for about a half an hour solid before it lightened up a little. They made them cut the concert short as puddles were forming on the cable connections. We were wearing raincoats and cuddled under a tarp and still got soaked.

But we had a blast.